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

involved in buying crops in a given area. With a large number of buyers, it is more difficult for
traders to collude in holding producer prices down. One of the strongest arguments for agricultural
market liberalization is that increasing the degree of competition in crop marketing will improve the
prices farmers receive for their output. In order to address this issue, the IFPRI-LARES Small
Farmer Survey asked farmers whether they thought the number of crop buyers had increased or
decreased since 1992. Over half (51 percent) of the respondents reported that the number of buyers
had increased and just 8 percent reported a decrease; the remainder saw no change (30 percent), had
no opinion (6 percent), or were not farming in 1992 (5 percent) (see Table 4.1.121).
The most positive responses were found among farmers in Atacora, Borgou, and Ouémé, where 73-
86 percent of farmers reported an increase in the number of buyers. The only department where the
response was not positive overall was Atlantique, where 89 percent reported no change (see Table
4.1.121) Since Atlantique is the most urbanized department, the number of traders may have been
relatively high even in the early 1990s, so liberalization did not affect output markets greatly.
Both male- and female-headed household were relatively positive about changes in the number of
buyers. Although the proportion reporting larger numbers of buyers was somewhat greater among
male-headed households, 44 percent of female-headed households said that the number of buyers
had increased and just 12 percent said it had decreased (see Table 4.1.122).
Nor is this improvement limited to richer households. In fact, poor households were much more
likely to report increases in the number of crop buyers than richer households. For example, 62
percent of the households in the poorest expenditure quintile said the number of buyers had
increased, but only 36 percent of households in the richest quintile said this (see Table 4.1.123).
One possibible explanation is that many of the higher income households live in Atlantique which,
as argued above, may have had a fairly active agricultural market even before the economic reforms
of the 1990s.
Volatility of crop prices The majority of farm households either see no change in crop
price volatility or do not have an opinion. On the other hand, among those who do perceive a
change, more report that price volatility has declined (27 percent) than report an increase in
volatility (10 percent). Perceived gains are strongest in Atacora and Borgou (see Table 4.1.124).
This regional difference may be linked to the expansion of maize production in the north over the
past ten years and/or satisfaction of cotton growers with the cotton price stabilization system.
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