Agricultural pricing policy and trade in several SADCC countries: preliminary results

A research paper on the effects of pricing policies on trade within the SADCC region.This paper focuses on the incentive effects of agricultural pricing and exchange rate policies on intra-SADCC trade in staple food commodities. In the following section, recent intra-SADCC trade patterns in staple food commodities are briefly reviewed. Then, the transportation cost argument for intraregional trade is assessed by examining differences between import and export parity prices for a number of SADCC markets. Import parity prices from various official and parallel market sources are then compared to illustrate the potential incentive effects of agricultural pricing and exchange rate policies on intraregional trade. The paper concludes by advocating the need for more systematic collection of parallel market data as an important input into agricultural policy analysis in SADCC countries.The Food Security Research Project is financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau of Science and Technology; Bureau for Africa; and the Southern Africa Regional Programme; under a Food Security in Africa cooperative agreement (DAN-1190-A-00-4092-00) with the Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University and Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Zimbabwe. We are particularly appreciative of the support we have received from USAID officials, including Allison Herrick, Eric Witt, Joshua Mushuari, Doug Pickett, and Brad Wallach of USAID/Zimbabwe; and our Washington-based project managers, Michael Yates (Science and Technology) and Patricia O’brien (Africa Bureau)