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2021 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

2. African Agricultural Value Chains: A Brief Historical Overview

verfasst von : Alan de Brauw, Erwin Bulte

Erschienen in: African Farmers, Value Chains and Agricultural Development

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

African agricultural value chains have gradually evolved from informal exchange to more formalization in general, yet this process has not been linear in time. Policy changes between colonial and post-colonial regimes first shifted at least some smallholders into more formalized markets, and then back to selling surplus on spot markets. The colonial era can be characterized as extractive; institutions were developed to extract value from Africa and provide cheap food to Europe, particularly tropical commodities. Many post-colonial governments continued to implicitly tax agriculture through urban bias and pricing, tariff, or exchange rate policies until structural adjustment occurred in the 1990s. Since then, several factors have improved African agricultural performance, including an infusion of FDI and private sector investments and changes in agricultural policy in Europe improving African terms of trade.

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Vorheriges Kapitel African Smallholders and Their Market Environment

Nächstes Kapitel Economic Theory and Value Chain Governance

East Africa integrated later in world markets of non-slave commodities than West Africa. In West Africa, this process took off during the nineteenth century, whereas in East Africa this was largely a twentieth century phenomenon (with the exception of ivory and spices like cloves). The difference in timing is presumably associated with the availability of slaves. West African slave exports ended around 1860 in many regions, but in East Africa the export of slaves did not stop until some three decades later. The production of agricultural commodities for world markets was partly based on internal slave mobilization, which was obviously facilitated by the retreat out of ocean-bound export of slaves.

Gold and ivory were the other main commodities that were exported from Africa. Africans, in turn, were keen to import textiles, guns, and liquor, amongst others. Cotton textiles (from India at first, later from Europe) were the single biggest import.

These products included palm oil, gum, cotton, cocoa, coffee, tea, tobacco, rubber, flax and wine and wool from temperate South Africa.

Colonial extraction rates were computed using producer prices in a competitive market—calculated as the difference between world market prices and trading costs—as the counterfactual. Actual producer prices were very low, compared to market prices in France (correcting for transport cost, etc.).

This is especially true for “savannah commodities” like cereals, and not for “forest commodities” like yam, cassava, or plantains.

Such programs help to make modern inputs available to smallholders, and contribute to boosting productivity. However, the implementation of these policies have raised concerns about adverse effects on the private sector (input dealers), unsuccessful targeting of the poorest farmers who were deemed to receive subsidized inputs, and fiscal sustainability. Large-scale subsidy programs contribute to the accumulation of debt, or crowd out other expenditures from the public budget.

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Titel: African Agricultural Value Chains: A Brief Historical Overview
verfasst von: Alan de Brauw
Erwin Bulte
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: African Farmers, Value Chains and Agricultural Development
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-88692-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-88693-6

Copyright-Jahr: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88693-6_2

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