Western and Central Africa-In
contrast to the highly regulated
maize markets of eastern and
southern Africa, maize markets
elsewhere in Africa are rarely
subject to government control. Few
governments in western and
central Africa attempt to partici-
pate directly in maize marketing
activities, and official maize prices,
if even announced, are rarely en-
forced. The difference in govern-
ment intervention reflects the fact
that maize, which is generally not a
primary food in western and
central Africa, has relatively less
political and economic importance
in that region than in eastern and
southern Africa.

The interesting question, of course,
is whether differing levels of gov-
ernment participation have any
appreciable effect on market per-
formance. If proponents of an active
role for government are correct, it
should be possible to discern
problems in the largely unregulated
maize markets of western and
central Africa. However, market
performance is not always easy to
evaluate. Numerous studies have
sought to determine if maize mar-
kets in western and central Africa
are economically efficient. In
efficient markets, price differences
from one location to another ap-
proximately equal transportation
costs, and price differences from
one season to another approxi-
mately equal storage costs. Price
spreads can also be expected to
include normal profits earned by
intermediaries on their investment
capital, as well as reasonable
compensation for risk. If transpor-
tation and storage costs, profits,
and/or risk premiums are excessive,
a market may be inefficient.

There is considerable evidence that
marketing margins for maize in
western and central Africa are
generally compatible with levels


that would prevail in competitive
markets. The differences between
producer prices and retail prices
are relatively large because of the
high real costs of marketing maize,
not because intermediaries wield
excessive power that allows them to
operate inefficiently or to earn
inflated profits. Williams and
Oludimu (1986) found that the
average 32% marketing margin for
shelled maize in Ondo State,
Nigeria, was reasonable given the
high cost of capital and transport.
Margins also were not found to be
excessive in northern Nigeria (Hays
and McCoy 1977; Delgado 1985)
and in Ghana (Southworth et al.
1979).

Another determinant of the effi-
ciency of maize markets is spatial
integration, which depends on such
factors as the regional stability of
production on the one hand, and
transportation infrastructure,
access to information, and availabil-
ity of credit on the other hand. If
regional maize production varies
considerably from year to year,
flows of marketed grain are likely
to change directions unpredictably,
and spatial integration is likely to
be poor. However, if production is
reasonably stable from one region
to another, spatial integration can
be expected to improve over time as
infrastructure improves and as
production increases (allowing
intermediaries to capture econo-
mies of scale in transportation and
storage). However, it is often
difficult to establish these relation-
ships empirically. Jones (1984)
reviewed several studies and
concluded that spatial market
integration in western Africa
frequently is poor because deficien-
cies in transportation, information,
and cash availability may seriously
impede efficiency.

Extreme price variability from one
season to another is sometimes
regarded as a sign of poor market


performance. Judged by this
criterion, maize markets in western
and central Africa appear to per-
form poorly, since seasonal price
differences are particularly large
for maize (see Figure 12 for an
example from Senegal). Southworth
et al. (1979) observed 100% vari-
ations in Ghana, and a recent IITA
survey done in northern Nigeria
found maize prices to be 66%
higher during the hungry period
(the time just before new crops are
harvested, when reserves from
previous crops are low or ex-
hausted) than after harvest. How-
ever, seasonal price fluctuations of
these magnitudes do not necessar-
ily indicate poor market perform-
ance, since average storage losses
of maize are believed to be as high
as 30-40% in many areas.

On the whole, it is difficult to say
whether the largely unregulated
maize markets in western and
central Africa perform better or
worse than the highly regulated
markets in eastern and southern
Africa. Clearly, the economic and
political costs of market instability
are higher in eastern and southern
Africa because maize is so impor-
tant there. Whereas most consum-
ers in western and central Africa
can substitute other staples (millet,
sorghum, rice, roots and tubers) for
maize when supplies are short,
consumers throughout large parts
of eastern and southern Africa do
not have easy access to substitutes.
For this reason, government efforts
to stabilize maize supplies and
prices in eastern and southern
Africa, while costly, are seen as
politically necessary.

International Trade
International trade in maize in sub-
Saharan Africa occurs mostly
between neighboring countries. In
normal years, only limited quanti-
ties of maize are imported from