فن آوری های جدید، استراتژی های بازاریابی و سیاست های عمومی برای محصولات غذایی سنتی : ارزن در نیجر

New technology introduction in this semiarid region of the Sahel is hypothesized to be made more difficult by three price problems in the region. First, staple prices collapse annually at harvest. Secondly, there is a between year price collapse in good and very good years due to the inelastic demand for the principal staple, millet, and the large changes in supply from weather and other stochastic factors. Thirdly, government and NGOs intervene in adverse rainfall years to drive down the price increases. Marketing strategies were proposed for the first two price problems and a public policy change for the third. To analyze this question at the firm level a farm programming model was constructed. Based upon surveying in four countries, including Niger, farmers state that they have two primary objectives in agricultural production, first achieving a harvest income target and secondly achieving their family subsistence objective with production and purchases later in the year. Farmers are observed selling their millet at harvest and rebuying millet later in the year. So the first objective takes precedence over the second. A lexicographic utility function was used in which these primary objectives of the farmer are first satisfied and then profits are maximized. According to the model new technology would be introduced even without the marketing strategies. However, the marketing strategies accelerated the technology introduction process and further increased farmers’ incomes. Of the three marketing-policy changes only a change in public policy with a reduction of the price depressing effect (cereal imports or stock releases) substantially increases farmers’ incomes in the adverse years. In developed countries crop insurance and disaster assistance is used to protect farmers in semiarid regions during bad and very bad (disaster) rainfall years. In developing countries finding alternatives to the poverty-nutritional problems of urban residents and poor farmers to substitute for driving down food prices in adverse years could perform the same function as crop insurance in developed countries of facilitating technological introduction by increasing incomes in adverse rainfall years in developed countries.

A principal production requirement of agriculture is that to produce crops major and minor nutrients are required. Without sufficient nitrogen and phosphorus yields will stagnate and decline to low level equilibriums (for an estimate of this yield decline using simulation to take out weather effects see Ahmed and Sanders, 1998, p. 258). Providing adequate nutrients for crop production in Niger is not a risky option that farmers can avoid. It is a prerequisite for removing crop production from a downward cycle of fertility depletion and yield decline. With continuing population pressure leading to the breakdown of traditional fertility replacement strategies, such as fallowing and migration to new areas, and the nutrient inadequacy of others, such as manure and rock phosphate, there needs to be a focus on increasing input purchases of nutrients (inorganic fertilizers, Sanders, 1989). For farmers to adopt these inputs, they need to be profitable. Moreover, the risks from low yields in adverse rainfall years need to be reduced with technology or policy. In developed countries, such as the US, institutional development (availability of crop insurance managed by the private sector but with an important public sector subsidy plus disaster assistance for major drought years funded by the public sector-see Dismukes and Glauber, 2005) allows farmers in semiarid regions to lose fertilized wheat or sorghum or experience low yields in inadequate rainfall years without going bankrupt. Then in normal and good rainfall years these activities are often very profitable. Africa is more dependent upon semiarid crop systems than any continent except Australia (Shapiro and Sanders, 2002, pp. 270–274). Using farm level programming we evaluate first whether farmers would adopt new technologies with higher fertilization levels. Secondly, we analyze the effects of the introduction of new marketing strategies and a public policy shift on farm level incomes and adoption. Finally, for an adverse rainfall year in which yields are substantially lower than in normal or good years are there policies that would protect farmers from taking losses? In the next section we describe the region’s production system, weather and price variability and new technology options. Then we define the farm model and detail the estimation of the parameters from fieldwork. The results section considers the various alternative scenarios discussed above. First, the potential for adoption of new technologies is analyzed. Then the farm response (model results) to resolving each of the three price problems and a public policy shift is evaluated. Further analysis of these options can be undertaken at the regional and national level. Here we focus on the farm level effects with prices varying by state of nature and period sold but exogenous prices. Finally, in the conclusions the major results are synthesized. Then we make some inferences about poverty policies and the differences between bad rainfall and drought years.

New fertilizer based technologies are adopted by farmers according to model results. Introduction of new marketing strategies results in an accelerated technology adoption and further income increases for farmers (model results). Only the public policy of not intervening in adverse rainfall years substantially increased returns in poor rainfall years. But this is a very important type of year to increase returns from the inventory credit since the new technologies do not perform well in low rainfall years. Inventory credit is already being adopted in the Sahelian region as is the development of new markets for the traditional food crops especially in Senegal (Ouendeba et al., 2003a). Review of previous program performance (Coulter and Onumah, 2002) and our model results indicate the importance of the governmental sector not intervening in these adverse years to drive food prices down. This governmental policy choice not to intervene provides a substitute for the risk insurance used in developed countries for adverse rainfall years in semiarid regions. Distinguishing between an adverse year and a disaster year will continue to be important in Niger and the other Sahelian countries. The short run choices open to Niger and other countries are often very difficult as indicated in 2004–2005. For the definition of a disaster year a millet price of 200 FCFA/kg may be too low and 300 FCFA/kg too high. Clearly, donors want less public intervention and more incentives through higher prices for farmers. The televised images in 2005 of village level suffering will probably push the intervention price lower leading to more rather than less intervention over the short term. In turn this will make the implementation of inventory credit programs more difficult (Coulter and Onumah, 2002). Are there some general inferences about food prices and poverty policy? Poverty is a function of the incomes of poor people and the prices they pay. Policy instruments that focus on the incomes of poor people rather than the prices they pay will have less negative effects on the incentives of farmers attempting to use new technologies and invest more in their farms. Is it possible to identify policy instruments that will have less negative effects in reducing the use of inputs and investments in agriculture? Specific payments to poor people in cash or kind as with Food for Work programs seem to fit in this category. The purchase of food commodities in the target country to be distributed or sold in other regions also gives incentives at least to the farmers in the selling region. This paper presents a farm level evaluation of the benefits of different policies without evaluating the aggregate effects of widespread adoption on prices or the financial and welfare costs of alternative policies. For the adverse year this analysis does not quantitatively compare the benefits to farmers selling with the losses to consumers and to food buying farmers. So the public sector will need to take the welfare of these different groups into consideration in making policy decisions. In the long run increasing farmers’ incentives to use inputs and to make investments in their farm operations would be expected to benefit both selling farmers and consumers. Consumers would benefit from the lower food prices than in the absence of farmers’ investments in new technologies.