Cook Islands Agriculture Market Information System

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An Agriculture Market Information System (AMIS) has been established in the Cook Islands. The AMIS is the first of its kind in the region and will be used to capture vital information for effective agricultural policy development. The work was led by the Department of Policy, Planning & Projects (DPPP) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in partnership with the European Union-funded Pacific Agricultural Policy Program (PAPP) implemented by the Secretariat of Pacific Community (SPC).

The consultancy team worked with MoA officials to conduct intensive stakeholder consultations and data collection over five weeks to help design the database. The data is collected from the market, farms and enterprises and loaded into the new AMIS for processing. It is designed to collect a large amount of information over time.

The purpose of the database is to collect specific market and production results to capture the performance of farmers, enterprises and the market. The information will then be used to form the building blocks for evidence based policy making and the design of projects aimed at supporting the growth of the sector.

Information from the AMIS will be readily available to planners and project developers across government agencies. The AMIS is housed at the MoA but is designed to both collect and distribute data to other stakeholders including the Office of Statistics, Customs and the Ministry of Health. Furthermore, it will also help answer some of the private sector’s vital questions by sharing information with the Chamber of Commerce, Development Bank and the Business Trade and Investment Board (BTIB).

Following a period of data collection, it is hoped that farmers will be able to know exactly what crops are suitable for the market in different seasons by looking at market prices and input costs. Banks will have information on potential clients to help facilitate the approval of agricultural loans. The BTIB should be able to identify weaknesses and strengths in the dynamics of the agricultural market and provide targeted assistance to farmers through its soft loan programme- and these are just a few examples of the AMIS’s potential uses.

What excites the MoA the most is the ability of the AMIS to identify key imported crops which have the potential to be subsisted by domestic producers at specific times of year.  Cook Islands spends $8 million annually on imported crops, largely for the tourist market. It is hoped that information from the AMIS will help domestic producers capture some of this market. 

The MoA is grateful in particular to the consultancy team Dr Saia Kami (Team Leader), Mr Jone Seniloli (Database specialist) and Mr Rajh Noel for their work and to the EU funded PAPP programme for its support.

The Director of DPP, Mr Patrick Arioka confirms that there has been growing interest from around the Pacific region in the benefits of the AMIS so expect to hear more good things as this work develops.

For more information, please contact: Patrick Arioka (patrick.arioka@agriculture.gov.ck)