Reforming Grain Marketing Systems in West Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the foodgrain-marketing problems of Mali and analyzes why numerous proposals for reform have proved infeasible or too difficult to implement. Among the principal findings are: (1) government implementation is severely limited by physical, financial, and organizational factors; (2) the present mixed (government and private) system of marketing cannot be easily improved; (3) uncertainty over prices and general market disorganization divert farmer effort to cash crops and may reduce farmer willingness to develop grain production; (4) since existing co-operative organizations are instruments of government used mainly for grain requisition, farmers are reluctant to set up true co-operatives that could better defend their interests; (5) external assistance including food aid and a line of credit in the Operations Account in Paris has diluted the impact of grain-marketing policies and allowed the Mali government to maintain policies without having to fully absorb the consequences; (6) until very recently, the government had not been presented with well thought through proposals. The paper concludes that in any successful reform the State grain agency will have to play a major role - even under a "minimalist" assumption about the State's role in grain marketing - and that major improvements will result from indirect measures such as improvement and extension of feeder-road networks, better information on crops and marketing and better dissemination of such information, closer attention to relaxation of production constraints on food grains, and improved policy analysis within government. Such indirect changes will widen the options for reform and increase the probability of their adoption.