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

marketing in specific sectors: the Societé Nationale des Fruits et Légumes, the Societé Béninoise de
Palamier à Huile, the Societé Nationale de Forêts, and the Societé de Développement des
Ressources Animales, and the Societé Nationale des Pêches.
The government attempted to control agricultural markets through various means, although it was
only successful in the case of cotton. In 1971, the Societé Nationale de Coton (SONACO), a mixed
enterprise, was created to manage the cotton sector, taking over the role of the Compagnie
Française de Développement de Fibres Textiles (CFDT). SONACO maintained a monopoly on
every phase of collection, processing, and marketing of cotton. As a result of the departure of
CFDT and policies giving greater priority to food crop production, however, cotton output fell from
50 thousand tons in 1972 to 14 thousand tons in 1981. In 1982, the Societé Nationale de Promotion
Agricole (SONAPRA), formed earlier to manage the distribution of inputs, was given responsibility
for marketing cotton as well.
Attempts to control food markets were less effective. Neither the Office de Commercialisation et
de Crédit Agriolce du Dahomey (OCAD), created in 1963, nor the Societés Provinciales de
Commercialisation Agricole (SOPROCA), created in the 1970s, nor the Office Nationale des
Céréales (ONC), created in 1983, were able to influence food markets in any significant way, much
less control them. For example, the ONC was given the assignment of collecting and marketing 25
percent of the grain supply but was never able to capture more than 5 percent of the total. Although
official prices were announced every year for oil palm, seed cotton, and staple foods, the official
food prices were largely irrelevant, with actual prices being set according to supply and demand
(Soulé, 1996).
The government was more successful in controlling the distribution of fertilizer and pesticides
because they were imported. Input policy was characterized by the following elements:
Agricultural inputs (fertilizer and pesticide) for the cotton sector could be imported duty-free,
while inputs for other crops were subject to import taxes.
Agricultural inputs for the cotton sector were sold to farmers at heavily subsidized prices, with
the subsidies reaching 75 percent at the end of the 1970s.
The inputs for the cotton sector were sold to farmers on credit, with repayment being deducted
from the cotton payments at harvest time.
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