Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

Marketing patterns
Village leaders were asked about the balance between village production and consumption
of various commodities. The responses were classified as follows:
Deficit: consumption exceeds production
Self-sufficient: production is just sufficient to meet local demand
Surplus: production exceeds consumption
Not applicable: the village neither produces nor consumes the commodity.
For most commodities, the number of deficit villages exceeds the number of surplus villages. This
is particularly the case for rice, beans, and yams, for which a majority of village report being in
deficit. This does not necessarily mean that the country is in deficit for these commodities. A
common pattern in agricultural marketing is for surpluses to be large in a few zones and for deficits
to be small in a large number of consuming zones. For maize, the numbers of deficit and surplus
villages are approximately equal. Manioc is the only commodity for which the number of surplus
villages exceeds the number of deficit villages (see Table 4.2.32).
These results can also be presented at the regional level (see Table 4.2.33). The results can be
summarized as follows:
In the case of maize, almost half the villages in the North have deficits, while in the south
the number of villages with surpluses exceeds the number with deficits.
In rice, only a few villages in the North have surpluses, but most villages in every region
are either deficit regions or they do not consume rice. This pattern reflects the fact that
Bénin is a net importer of rice.
Sorghum/millet surpluses are most common in the north, while villages in the south either
have deficits or do not consume this commodity at all.
In beans, most villages in all three regions have deficits, but less than 15 percent have
surpluses. This pattern suggest the presence of cross-border imports of beans.
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