ABSTRACT
Governments in Africa intervene in agricultural markets in characteristic ways. They tend to lower the prices offered for agricultural commodities. This chapter describes characteristics of patterns of government intervention and examine a variety of explanations for this behaviour. Governments intervene in the market for products in an effort to lower prices. Insofar as African governments seek increased farm production, their policies are project-based rather than price-based. It is useful to distinguish between two kinds of agricultural commodities: food crops, many of which could be directly consumed on the farm, and cash crops, few of which are directly consumable and which are instead marketed as a source of cash income. In the markets for the crops they produce, African farmers therefore face a variety of government policies that serve to lower farm prices. Agricultural policies in Africa thus tend to be adverse to the interests of most producers.
