Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa ... - infoDev

Table 4.3 Expected Performance along Key IndicatorsNationalmonopoly andlocal monopoly Concentrated CompetitiveProcess indicatorsQuality andMedium High LowmarketingPricingLow if left toLowHighcompanies aloneInput provision High Medium LowExtension High Medium LowResearch High Medium LowValorization ofby-productsNo clear predictionIntermediate outcome indicatorsYield High High LowCompany costEfficiencyLow Medium HighFinal outcome indicatorsFarmer welfareOverallcompetitivenessMacro ImpactSource: Authors.No clear predictionNo clear predictionNo clear predictionmore difficult for companies to monitor than is input delivery. Third, even forcompanies committed to increasing farm-level productivity, the return toextension is likely to take longer to appear and to be more difficult to identifythan the return to input delivery. For all these reasons, commitment to extensionis likely to be harder to maintain than commitment to input delivery;especially where systems come under stress (for example, because of increasedcompetition in concentrated systems), extension effort may be sacrificed fornarrower loan monitoring and recovery.As we close this chapter, it is important to note that the type and quality ofsector regulation will have a strong effect on performance for all indicators. Thejob of regulation may be thought of as seeking correction in areas where anunregulated sector is likely to perform poorly, while preserving that sector’sstrengths. The corollary is that the predictions in table 4.3 may be most accuratein situations where regulation is weak, which it typically is in Africa. However,as has already been described (chapter 3), there are ongoing efforts to buildmore effective regulatory regimes for the cotton sector in several of the study’sfocus countries.58 POULTON AND TSCHIRLEY