ABSTRACT
Likewise, by scaling back, or entirely removing, parastatal and state-sponsored cooperative agricultural marketing structures and by lifting restrictions on private sector entry to these activities, it was hoped that there would be a strong private sector response in supplying inputs and in purchasing, storing, processing and (where appropriate) exporting produce. Additionally, it was thought that parallel financial sector reforms (encompassing monetary management at the macro-level, through banking sector reforms down to the commercialisation or privatisation of state-supported agricultural finance organisations) would catalyse the other elements of structural adjustment by channelling funds to emerging opportunities for profitable farming and trade. However, as Jones’s (1994) survey shows, although African governments were slow to respond to external advice to liberalise the agricultural sector, most have now travelled a fair distance along this path but have realised, at best, only modest success. In particular, input and credit supply systems for smallholder agriculture are in a parlous state and, in general, are failing to make progress towards the World Bank’s objectives (World Bank, 1997) of ‘sustainable intensification’.
