Model of meat versus live - animal exports from Upper Volta

Since one way for Upper Volta to gain more from its exports would be to increase the proportion of meat, relative to livestock, exported, this paper develops a theoretical model of how Voltaic exports are allocated between live-animal and meat exports. The model, which is used both to explore interrelationships between meat and live-animal exports and to predict the effects of likely future events (the financing of new meat traders; changes in Abidjan meat prices, or in the relative prices of meats and offals, or in their relative transportation costs; an increased ability to process and export edible offals; and changes in the demand for offals in the North), shows that conditions that might be expected to favor one mode of export over the other do not necessarily do so, but are self-braking, allowing both modes to coexist profitably. The authors conclude that the best way for the Government of Upper Volta to promote meat exports would be to increase the capacity to process and export offals and to decrease meat transportation costs. The model"s results are applicable not only in Upper Volta, but also in other inland meat-producing countries in West Africa.