Food marketing and pricing policy in Eastern and Southern Africa : lessons for increasing agricultural productivity and access to food

Although the record of implementation has often been slow and uneven, staple food marketing policy has been transformed over this period. The prevailing wisdom was that by lowering marketing costs, these reforms would reduce consumer food prices, raise producer prices, and generally stimulate farm technology adoption and agricultural productivity growth. This study surveys the empirical record of grain marketing and pricing policy in selected Eastern and Southern African countries (Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa) over the period 1930-1995. The paper addresses five key issues with major implications for food policy in Africa: (a) why the anticipated supply response to market liberalization has not yet occurred; (b) why the common assumption of state taxation of farmers to support a cheap food policy does not apply in most of these countries; (c) why the temporary successes of the state-led approach to stimulating smallholder grain production were unsustainable; (d) why the elimination of government food subsidies associated with market reform has not adversely affected consumers; and (e) why marketing board deficits have risen rather than declined after the reforms were initiated in most countries. (Author abstract)