ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with food trade in pre-colonial, colonial and post-independence Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to structural adjustment, marketing boards dealt with grain trade in over half of the African countries south of the Sahara. Long-distance trade developed all over Africa. The Portuguese were the first to open up trans-Atlantic trade routes from West Africa in late 15th century, followed by the French, Danish, Dutch and British in the 17th century. In West Africa, the Saharan salt mines and Sahelian commercial towns, which existed before the Christian era, were almost entirely dependent on savannah agriculture. The first forms of exchange between African communities probably go back as far as the Early Stone Age. Non-African farmers settled in South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Kenya. British colonial administrations became directly involved in the marketing of food when they allowed African farmers to pay their taxes in rice, beans and maize as an alternative to cash.
