Crises in cotton of francophone africa: fatality or challenge for multi-dimension cooperation?
- Literature reference
-
- Author
- M. Fok
- English title of the work
- Crises in cotton of francophone africa: fatality or challenge for multi-dimension cooperation?
- Title of the work
- Crises in cotton of francophone africa: fatality or challenge for multi-dimension cooperation?
- Year of publication
- 2010
- Author's email
- michel.fok@cirad.fr
- Book title
- Commodity Trade, Governance and Economic Institutions: New Challenges in the 21st Century
- Editor's name
- Nissanke, Machiko and Mavrotas, George
- Page number
- 165-220
- Publisher's address
- London
- Publisher's name
- Palgrave/Macmillan
- Countries concerned
-
Africa (Continent)
- Associated thesauruses
-
Colire
- Keywords Colire
Measure description
Policy measures
Debate on subsidies and support
Cotton support
Cotton subsidies
International negotiations
Europe-Africa cotton initiative
C4 Cotton sectoral initiative
Doha Round
Role of parastatal organizations
Monopoly
Cotton para-statals
Regulation of cotton sector
Competition
Marketing administration
Price administration
Input and service supply
Administration of pricing mechanisms
Minimum price
World price
A index
Fixed price
Price administration
Pricing mechanism
Role in balance of trade
Balance of trade
Historic perspective of economic development
Cotton development
History
Cotton and economic development
Economic development
Rural development
Regional development
- Saved on
- 2011-12-14
- Modifed on
- 2011-12-14
- Administrated by
-
Fok Michel
- English abstract
- Cotton was not substantially dealt with in the ‘Commodities in crisis’ analysis of Alfred Maizels, whereas it did undergo its first crisis of modern times in the mid-1980s. Curiously enough, African cotton producing countries have recently tapped, if not rehabilitated, two of Maizels' main ideas to solve the commodity crisis. They called for international intervention before the WTO arena and specifically demanded compensation to alleviate the detrimental effects resulting from subsidisation provided by a few countries/regions in the world.
The cotton market has notably changed. From January 2008 onward, the historical Cotlook Index A for delivery in Northern Europe will be replaced by the index for Far East delivery in recognition of the vibrant economic development in Asia and its implications in terms of wealth creation and distribution. The increase in income implies changes in consumers' demand which is not necessarily in favour of commodities. In the production area, notably of cotton, productivity is thought to have been greatly enhanced by biotechnology adoption, at least in a few countries, implying a larger productivity gap at the expense of developing countries (DCs). These countries could suffer more from the continuing deterioration of the terms of trade of the cotton they produce, along with greater world price fluctuation.
This paper applies the analysis of Maizels in assessing cotton crisis factors and updates his recommendations in order to prevent cotton crises or alleviate their effects. This contribution is based on a vision of cotton crises from the perspective of the francophone African cotton producing countries (FACs).
The factors underlying the cotton crisis since the mid-1980s still prevail and have been exacerbated in the areas of demand, supply, price formation and currency exchange. Alfred Maizels did not exhaustively identify these factors but most of those he analyzed remain valid in the case of cotton. The solutions he put forward open the mindset for identifying crucial challenges in the international arena and in cotton-dependent countries