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Chapter 8. Cocoa and Cotton Commodity Chains in West Africa 253 Chapter 8 Cocoa and cotton commodity chains in West Africa: Policy and institutional roles for smallholder market participation* Philip ABBOTT 1 * Correct citation: Abbott, P. (2013), Cocoa and cotton commodity chains in West Africa: Policy and institu- tional roles for smallholder market participation, In: Rebuilding West Africa’s Food Potential, A. Elbehri (ed.), FAO/IFAD. 1 Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University. This paper was commissioned by FAO Trade and Markets Division and was presented to the FAO Workshop on “Institutional innovations and policy interventions in support of smallholder market participation,” Rome, June 3– 4, 2010. The paper synthesizes and extends on earlier work funded by IITA, USAID and the World Bank. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 253 2. Background 254 2.1 Cocoa and cotton in West Africa 254 2.2 Structural adjustment and privatization 258 2.3 Effects of agronomy and environment on value chains 260 2.4 Prices along the value chain 261 2.5 Smallholder farmers 266 2.6 International interventions 267 3. Issues 268 3.1 “Shortening” the marketing chain 268 3.2 Tax incidence 269 3.3 Public goods after privatization 270 3.4 Quality 271 3.5 Inputs and credit 272 4. Policy options 273 4.1 Privatization 273 4.2 Pricing and taxation 274 4.3 Institutional development 276 5. Successful innovations 277 5.1 Producer organizations 277 5.2 Fair trade 278 5.3 Credit 279 5.4 Multinationals 279 6. Implications for small farmers 280 7. References 283 Chapter 8. Cocoa and cotton commodity chains in West Africa 253 1. Introduction Cocoa and cotton are important commodity exports from West Africa. Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria export nearly 70 percent of the world’s cocoa (FAOSTAT, 2012). West African exporters are the second largest regional group exporting cotton, providing 11 percent of world cotton trade. Mali and Burkina Faso are the two largest West African cotton exporters, accounting for half of regional exports (ERS, 2010). Cocoa and cotton are not only important sources of export revenue, but also important sources of agricultural income, including income to smallholder farmers in those countries. Cocoa provides 38 percent of agricultural value added in Côte d’Ivoire and 12 percent in Ghana. Cotton accounts for 12.7 percent of agricultural value added in Mali and 7 percent in Burkina Faso (FAOSTAT, 2012 and World Bank, 2012).1 Cocoa and cotton often involve long value chains and payments to farmers for the commodities are a small part of the cost of the consumer products derived from these goods. There may be significant opportunity to raise farmer income by “shortening the marketing chain”, thus providing to farmers a greater share of the value added in final consumer products. Value chain analysis has been used for both cocoa and cotton in West African countries to guide interventions aimed at improving smallholder farmer incomes (Cappelle, 2008; FIAS, 2007; Gilbert, 2006; ICCO, 2006; Poulton et al, 2004; RATES, 2005). These efforts have often focused on increasing the market power of farmers by strengthening farmer organizations and by correcting market failures along the value chain that influence credit, inputs, quality, and information. International assistance to these commodities in these countries has sought to replace market institutions that were missing or functioning poorly following structural adjustment reforms that reduced the roles of parastatal marketing boards which had monopolized both domestic marketing and exports (Gowkowski, 2008; ICCO, 2010). The claim of those interventions has been that they were fostering innovations targeted to improving smallholder farmer incomes (e.g. STCP, 2010; Tschirley et al, 2009). Value chain analysis often focuses on new initiatives that involve contracting mechanisms with smallholder farmers in new markets. These market mechanisms are only apparent for the more mature cotton and cocoa markets in quite small niches, such as fair trade. In that case the one successful cooperative - Kuapa Kookoo in Ghana - has become a partial owner rather than a contractor with its upstream partners. Nevertheless, similar issues arise when considering institutions and policy options aimed at raising smallholder farmer income, particularly as reforms change existing value chains. Market failures must be addressed, geographic and agronomic specialization must be considered, and scale economies, spillovers to other markets, as well as roles for NGOs and aid interventions in institutional development must also be taken into account. This chapter explores issues and recent experience with policy reform and institutional changes aimed at improving smallholder farmer income for cocoa and cotton farmers in West Africa. Analysis and results are based on earlier research conducted in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Nigeria . 2 In the next section, background information on the cocoa and cotton sectors of these countries is presented, including descriptions of value chains, the roles of small farmers, and the nature of interventions. The following section highlights the key issues relevant to raising farm income: limits on raising farm income through market interventions, institutional changes after privatization, and market failures in quality, inputs and credit. Policy options are then examined in light of these issues, and successful outcomes are 1 Data reported here for 2005 and 2009 (see Table 1) are typical of the roles played by these West African countries in cocoa and cotton world markets, and of the roles of these commodities in agriculture in those countries. 2 Research on cocoa was in collaboration with the Small Tree Crops Program (STCP) of IITA. USAID funded that research as well as research on cotton in Burkina Faso and Mali. Subsequently, the World Bank funded research on agricultural policy in Côte d’Ivoire. FAO supported updating of that work as well as viewing interventions from a value chain perspective. 254 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential discussed. The paper concludes by assessing implications for smallholder farmers. Although correcting market failure and improving producer organizations may yield benefits to farmers, these gains along the value chain are likely to be small relative to gains from enhancing productivity, given constraints on marketing interventions. Mature markets like cocoa and cotton may differ from new initiatives in that respect, and institutional development - particularly for inputs and credit - may be needed as sectors reform simply to maintain existing farm income levels. 2. Background 2.1 Cocoa and cotton in West Africa Several West African countries generate significant export revenue from cocoa and cotton exports and are major players in world markets for these commodities. The four largest West African cocoa exporters accounted for about 70 percent of cocoa exports in 2005 (FAOSTAT, 2012). The two largest West African cotton exporters played a somewhat smaller role, having shipped about 5.5 percent of worldwide cotton exports in 2005. Other West African cotton exporters account for another 5.5 percent of world cotton trade (ERS, 2010). Cocoa trade is closely related to production since only a small amount of production is consumed domestically by any major cocoa exporter. The pattern of world trade in cotton exhibits a significant share of production used domestically in some major producing countries. Cocoa and cotton trade patterns are more similar in West Africa, however, since most production is exported rather than consumed domestically, after varying degrees of primary processing. Three of the countries examined here are largely dependent on a single commodity export (Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali), whereas other countries export several commodities (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria). Table 1 reports cocoa and cotton exports in 2005 and 2009 from the six countries examined here. Côte d’Ivoire is shown to export nearly USD2 billion worth of cocoa, 26 percent of its total exports, and Ghana exported nearly USD1 billion of cocoa, a third of its exports in 2005. Burkina Faso and Mali exported over USD 200 million worth of cotton, amounting to 62 percent and 24 percent of total exports, respectively, and over 60 percent of agricultural exports for both in 2005 (FAOSTAT, 2010). Growth elsewhere in the economy decreased these shares in some cases for 2009. Chapter 8. Cocoa and cotton commodity chains in West Africa 255 Table 1. Cotton and Cocoa Exports, 2005 and 2009 2005 2009 Country Cotton Cocoa Cotton Cotton Burkina Faso Exports (USD million) 214 0,8 250 % Processed * 99 0,0 98 % of Ag. Exports 77 0,3 81 % of Tot. Exports 62 0,2 53 Cameroon Exports (USD million) 133 247 106 256 % Processed * 100 15,7 100 9,8 % of Ag. Exports 22 40,9 16 39,0 % of Tot. Exports 4 8,3 3 7,1 Côte d'Ivoire Exports (USD million) 148 1921 102 2019 % Processed * 94 55,2 96 59,6 % of Ag. Exports 5 63,6 3 58,1 % of Tot. Exports 2 26,5 1 23,8 Ghana Exports (USD million) 7 912 5 1044 % Processed * 72 16,3 53 24,6 % of Ag. Exports 1 79,6 0 74,3 % of Tot. Exports 0 32,5 0 24,9 Mali Exports (USD million) 267 201 % Processed * 99 98 % of Ag. Exports 83 64 % of Tot. Exports 24 13 Nigeria Exports (USD million) 24 470 24 331 % Processed * 83 5,6 85 6,0 % of Ag. Exports 4 71,8 4 54,9 % of Tot. Exports 0 1,0 0 0,5 1 Processed : Cotton : (Cotton Lint / Tot. Cotton)*100 Cocoa : [( Cocoa butter + powder + paste )/ Cocoa beans Prod. Value]*100 *Processed means converted from seed cotton to lint for cotton, and from cocoa beans to butter, powder and paste for cocoa. There are post-harvest activities potentially done on the farm that precede this level of processing, especially for cocoa (fermentation and drying). Source : FAO, FAOSTAT, 2012 Some primary processing is required for each crop.
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