Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

56 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

future export earnings. But the ensuing collapse of prices meant that these indebted countries have been

unable to pay their debts, given their emaciated revenues.

Declining prices have also caused the collapse of international agreements on these products and

goods, thus ending any international trade regulation for them. Countries in the region have therefore

suffered a significant loss of income – agricultural and non-farm – which had been drawn primarily from

these exports. They also gradually lost their market share in these sectors, starting in the 1980s, with the

rise of other competing regions, such as Southeast Asia. In addition, it was during this period that the

African continent, including West Africa, became a net food importer, largely because of the significant

increase in population in the 1960s and increased consumption per capita (Rakotoarisoa et al., 2011).

The loss of export revenues has also made it difficult to finance these imports.

Figure 7. Evolution of international commodity product prices (1960-1990)

Source: World Bank Data (2012)

This new situation revealed and exacerbated the flaws of the institutional configuration in the export

model strategy. Agriculture parastatals were faced with extremely low prices for the sectors concerned,

making it more and more difficult to subsidize them, and therefore creating many fiscal deficits. At

national level, the mismanagement of these organizations intensified the financial pressure, resulting

in significant operating costs, red tape and rampant corruption (Murphy, 2010). This all led to a decline

or even collapse of the quality of services provided by these agencies throughout the value chain. The

drop in prices could not be compensated by productivity gains within each value chain, partly because

parastatals had the monopoly, which resulted in a lack of incentive to be competitive. Moreover,

although the state had previously reaped benefits through the control of these sectors, it reinvested very

little in research and development,^2 meaning that yields achieved in these sectors evolved only slightly in

the 1970s and 1980s (Figures 8, 9 and 10) and did not increase steadily, especially in comparison with

other competing regions.

(^2) Consumer spending has been preferred, especially to meet the needs of growing populations.

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19601962196419661968197019721974197619781980198219841984198619881990

Cocoa, USD cenmes/kg Arabica Coffee, USD Cenmes/kg

Coon, USD Cenmes/kg Groundnut Oil, USD/metric ton