ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates the ways in which the typical trader-exporter attempts to acquire and maintain control over the actors in the upper section. In doing so, his relationship with the intermediaries from whom he buys is crucial. (If there are several intermediaries, the most downstream one is relevant.) In Chapter 6, we discussed the practices at the IMPs; now, we will turn to the policies at these points, first those of the exporter and then those of the intermediaries. For practical reasons, the analysis in this chapter is confined to West Africa, an area which has been widely recognized as shaped by international trade and small-scale agricultural production. 1