Since the early 1980s, dramatic changes in export commodity markets, shocks associated with resulting price declines, and changing views on the role of the state have ushered in widespread reforms to agricultural commodity markets in Africa. The reforms significantly reduced government...

Fluctuating prices for raw jute have been viewed as contributing to economic problems in the jute subsector. Price fluctuations were thought to reduce the jute farmers'welfare and there has been concern about the costs of parastatals'stocking operations in attempts to stabilize jute prices and...

Cereal production accounts for about seventy percent of all agricultural land in Morocco. Cereal producer prices, influenced by the government, are higher than world prices. Production is divided into six broad agro-climatic zones. About half of cereal production is concentrated in the...

Current coffee prices are at record lows and below the cost of production for many producers in Central America. Moreover, the coffee crisis is structural, and changes in supply and demand do not indicate a quick recovery of prices. So, coffee producers in Central America are facing new...

Liberalization in commodity markets has brought profound changes in the way price risks are allocated and managed in commodity subsectors. Price risks are increasingly allocated to private traders and farmers rather than absorbed by the government. The success of market reform depends on the...

This paper documents the difficulties various countries in sub - Saharan Africa have had with marketing and pricing systems, and shows how these systems have been caused or exacerbated by government controls. It documents the steps several countries have taken toward relaxing those controls and...

The authors examine risk management options for Egyptian cottons, the export prices for which are volatile. They use regression analysis to establish whether Egyptian cotton's prices can be effectively hedged by using existing futures contracts on the New York Cotton Exchange. They find no...

Coffee is an important crop for the Dominican Republic, accounting for an average of 11 percent of total exports by value during 1982-84. But for the last 10 years, coffee yields have been low, and production and exports stagnant. If current policies for coffee continue, production and exports...