Starter Kit. Idea 234 of 500. Cluster 11
A cinnamon exchange: published daily prices by grade, so the smallholder knows what his bale is worth
The mechanism, from the book
The imitation out-earns the original. Vietnam earns more from cassia than Sri Lanka does from true cinnamon, because the cassia arrives on the shelf as a product and the cinnamon arrives at the port as a bale.
The first step
Visit 5 cinnamon smallholders and 3 collectors in one district this week and ask each what they paid or received for each grade today. Write the prices down, post them in a free group chat for smallholders, and repeat every day for a fortnight. The proof is how many smallholders join and whether any say the prices changed what they accepted.
- Who pays first
- A processor or exporter who wants a reliable daily price reference by grade and will pay for the full data once smallholders trust it.
- What leaves today
- Smallholders sell their bales without knowing what each grade is worth, so the collectors keep the difference and the grower cannot bargain.
Ask first
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask whether they publish cinnamon prices now, and how often.
- Information and Communication Technology Agency. Ask whether they support small price-information services for farmers.
Check before you spend
Whether collectors and processors will report honest prices to you, and how you keep each person's numbers private.
Find out these three numbers
- What did each grade fetch at the gate this week?
- How many smallholders would read a daily price message?
- Who would pay to keep the price list running?
A comparison from the book
New Zealand. Chapter Eleven
"a buyer plays them off against each other, and the price falls to whatever the most desperate grower will accept."
A grower who knows the day's price is harder to play off against his neighbour.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.