Compared effects of public policies on rice markets and food security in West Africa: Getting beyond the liberalization versus protection debate

Abstract

The 2007 to 2008 price surges on the world market for cereals have triggered a debate on the ability of trade liberalization to ensure food security in the most food insecure countries. Taking the case of rice in West Africa, the impact of the trade liberalization process is assessed with regards to the changes in the level of West African rice market dependency upon rice imports from the world market. The continuous deterioration of the rice food balance is actually due to a change in diet rather than to declining production, which has, in fart, the same growth rate as that of the population. Comparing the evolution of the per capita production increase across six countries, three of which have widely opened their rice market to imports and three others, which have maintained a higher level of protection, we found that it is not possible to unambiguously correlate rice dependency levels with a specific trade policy option. Beyond the strong debate opposing the proponents of rice trade liberalization in West Africa against the supporters of higher custom tariffs, decision-makers should pay more attention to processes linking local supply to urban demand, as these marketing and processing functions are crucial for materializing the incentives expected from both policy options for strengthening food security.