The producers' price system and the coffee and cocoa trade at village level in West Africa

The West African goverments fix annual producers' prices for most kinds of export produce. These prices, which are consederably lower than the corresponding world market prices, have to be paid by produce buyers, when they buy from farmers. This study reports on research done among the cocoa and coffee farmers in four West African countries (Cameroon, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Nigeria) in 1979 and 1980. I investigated on the spot whether the farmers received the official producers' price and, if not, what kind of deviations occurred and how large they were. I found that on the whole the producers' price system was effective but there were also deviations, negative as well as positive. These deviations are discussed and presented in tables. They are expressed as percentages of the producers' price to allow comparisons for countries and crops