Project Leader: Ousmane Badiane

After several decades of total control of groundnut marketing by state parastatals, the Senegalese government decided to initiate reforms to allow private sector participation in the marketing system. The reforms that were adopted were, however, quite limited and did not change the state's control of groundnut marketing in any significant way. The groundnut sector is highly commercialized and Senegal has a vibrant private trading sector and good infrastructure. These conditions made it easier for the study to analyze the policy-related factors underlying private trader's response to the reform programs. Its focus was on the reform-induced changes in the operating environment of groundnut markets and the adjustment of local marketing systems to these changes.

The study's main objectives were to document the transition process from a state-run to a private sector-based distribution system; analyze the implications of the coexistence of the public and private sectors in the distribution system; and examine the effect of further liberalization on production incentives and profitability in the processing sector.

After a catastrophic harvest and the failure by the marketing parastatal to procure enough groundnuts for the processing plants in 1996, we were asked by the National Inter-Professional Council on Groundnuts, which regroups key stakeholders in the sector, to gather additional data on the marketed surplus and marketing activities by private traders for that year and to update our analysis to capture these later developments.

• Collaboration
• Research Tasks
• Field Activities
• Research Findings

For further information please email ifpri-mti@cgiar.org or contact Markets, Trade and Institutions Division, IFPRI, 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20006, U.S.A.