Cash Crop and Foodgrain Productivity in Senegal: Historical View, New Survey Evidence, and Policy Implications

Valerie Auserehl Kelly (), Bocar Diagana, Thomas Reardon, Matar Gaye and Eric Winthrop Crawford ()

No 20, International Development Papers from Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University

Abstract: Senegal has experienced a number of spurts in agricultural production and productivity growth since independence, yet average trends from 1960 through 1993 have been either stagnant (in terms of aggregate production and yields), or negative (in terms of real value of production). Key insights gained from a historical review of Senegalese agricultural policy are: (1) Agricultural intensification and productivity growth are driven by cash crops that have reliable markets and predictable prices; (2) Crop research has helped maintain productivity despite declining rainfall; (3) Liberalization has improved cereal marketing efficiency, but the production impact has been small because peanuts still provide greater profits and more predictable markets; (4) Vertically integrated extension, input distribution, credit, and output marketing systems serve geographically dispersed smallholders well, encouraging agricultural intensification more than the less integrated systems which have recently evolved; (5) Vertically integrated systems can become costly and inefficient, particularly if management responds more to political pressure than to business logic; (6) A lack of attention to rural literacy, extension, and farm-level financial analysis has fostered the adoption of technologies, such as animal traction and fertilizer, that farmers now find difficult to sustain; (7) Senegal's failure during the 1960s and 1970s to monitor farmers' real income, input/output price ratios, and the net financial impact of agricultural subsidies and taxes on stakeholders (farmers, fertilizer manufacturers, the government, etc.) increased the severity of the economic crisis that brought structural adjustment to the forefront in the 1980s.

Keywords: food security; food policy; agricultural production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
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Related works:
Working Paper: CASH CROP AND FOODGRAIN PRODUCTIVITY IN SENEGAL: HISTORICAL VIEW, NEW SURVEY EVIDENCE, AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS (1996)
Working Paper: Cash Crop and Foodgrain Productivity in Senegal: Historical View, New Survey Evidence, and Policy Implications (1996)
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