Commodity

Smallholder farmers make up over 90 percent of Ethiopia’s agricultural output and thus play a pivotal role in the country’s food production and availability. However, little research has been done regarding how farmers’ production and supply decisions respond to changes in agricultural prices. These supply responses can have significant implications for overall food security.

As developing country incomes rise and populations become more urbanized, food markets are seeing more demand for higher value and processed foods. At the same time, trade liberalization and increased foreign direct investment have stimulated changes in many countries’ food value chains, making it easier for modern markets to access a reliable supply of high-quality goods. These supply- and demand-side transformations have led to a strong new trend throughout developing regions – the growth of the modern supermarket.

As the only functioning commodity exchange in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is viewed as wildly successful in modernizing the Ethiopian economy, linking smallholder farmers to markets, and enhancing the country’s food security.

Comme de nombreux gouvernements de pays en développement, le gouvernement du Malawi est intervenu sur les marchés agricoles du pays afin d'assurer un approvisionnement alimentaire adéquat à des prix raisonnables.

In the 1960s, Ghana was the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans; while the country’s cocoa crop took a hit in the 1980s as a result of rampant bushfires, it has since rebounded and is now the second largest producer of cocoa beans in the world. The majority of the raw beans grown in Ghana are not processed within the country, however, and the government has been putting more emphasis in recent years on promoting industrialization of the domestic cocoa value chain by subsidizing the price paid for beans by local cocoa bean processors.