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Cotton in Africa : an analysis of differences in performance Vol. 1 of 1 |
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The development of African economies depends to a great extent on the
performance of their agricultural sector, within which export crops
play an important role. However, Africa ' s share of world trade in
traditional export crops has declined steadily during the past two
decades. This paper focuses on cotton, a key export crop. The world
demand for cotton grew at 1.2 percent per annum from 1961 to 1986, less
rapidly than cocoa and tea; but Africa ' s demand for cotton grew
faster than for most other commodities that it exports. By and large,
cotton production in the francophone countries has been superior to
that of anglophone countries, even though many of the latter had
excelled earlier. This paper attempts to pinpoint the causes of the
relative success and failure of different commodity development
schemes. It also explains variations in the performance of national
cotton subsectors by focusing on the key interactions between price and
nonprice factors.
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