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Markets and States of Tropical Africa
Why, when Africa is a chief producer of agricultural goods, does it fail to produce enough to keep the citizens from starving? It is due to the intervention of government into the marketplace, and the government’s manipulation of the resources for political gain. The objective of the government is to move the economy away from agriculture and towards industry in order to achieve a modern country. In doing so they adopt political policies which further detriments the peasants in order to appease their upper class.
Agricultural policy consists of government actions that affect the incomes of rural producers by influencing the prices they pay in major markets, and thereby determining their incomes. Farmers are faced with three markets. The market for agricultural commodities, where they receive revenue from sales; the production market, where their costs are incurred; and the market for consumer goods, where their income is determined by the real value of their profits. It is in these markets where the government policies are intervened and manipulated to achieve their goals. That is the goal of becoming a modern industrial country. One way that this is done is through the concept of the sole buyer. In Africa, it is policy that a governmental entity be the sole buyer of agricultural products. Due to the fact that this is a rural third world country, a market is produced in which there are several suppliers, but only one sole buyer, which is a government entity. It is in this way that the government may determine the prices because when there are several suppliers and only one buyer it is a prime situation in which the buyer is ...