Globalization and restructuring of African commodity flows, edited by Niels Fold and Marianne Nylandsted Larsen, Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2008, 276 pp., £24.95 (paperback), ISBN 9789171066169
This collection of essays seeks to identify and unveil the different ways in which African countries have been incorporated into ongoing processes of globalisation by adopting a common analytical approach known as global value chain analysis. Taking Gereffi's work on global commodity chains as its point of departure, the book focuses on actors, institutions and processes linked to the organisation of functionally integrated nodes of production and services at the local, national, regional, and global levels. Each chapter examines commodity chain-specific data collected in two or more African countries in order to highlight the impact of changing patterns of ‘governance’, ‘regulation’, and ‘upgrading’ on the development prospects of both local producers and national economies.
Focusing on the distribution of power and the role played by lead firms within specific commodity chains, the concept of governance refers to the ways in which different types of buyer–seller relations organise cross-border production arrangements. Charles Mather (Chapter 4) and Michael Friis Jensen (Chapter 5), for example, provide empirically rich case studies of the shift from producer-driven to buyer-driven export chains. In both chapters, the authors demonstrate how the imposition of quality standards and buyer requirements during the 1990s has become a key vehicle of vertical integration led by powerful retailers within a context of market liberalisation and deregulation. In Mather's study of South Africa's citrus industry, the new demands for quality, variety, and higher phytosanitary standards, coupled with the withdrawal of price and technical supports from Citrus Exchange – the single channel system for citrus exports in the pre-liberalisation era – have strengthened the position of large producers selling certified fruit to overseas buyers. Similarly, Jensen underscores how the implementation of increasingly strict food safety requirements by UK retailers has transformed the organisation of the Kenyan horticultural supply chain, leading to the exclusion of smallholders previously involved in the production of fresh fruit and vegetables for the export market.
The way in which market reforms and changing quality standards have impacted the structure of value chains is further analysed by Fold and Stefano Ponte (Chapter 6) and Larsen (Chapter 7). The authors examine the relationship between the deregulation of domestic procurement and quality control systems, on the one hand, and the deterioration of international reputation and price premiums allocated to African producers, on the other. In Chapter 6, Fold and Ponte take a comparative approach to analyse the effects of market liberalisation on coffee exports from East Africa and cocoa exports from West Africa, underscoring how the maintenance of crop quality and price premiums as a source of added value in countries like Kenya and Ghana is closely associated with the preservation of state-regulated marketing systems and payment procedures. In a similar vein, Larsen finds that the production of quality cotton in francophone African countries rests upon the development of a privatised but regulated export sector, characterised by comprehensive national schemes that enable the provision of quality-inducing inputs on favourable credit terms to smallholders. As such, moving beyond the analysis of structures of governance that shape commodity chains from within, these contributions emphasise the key role played by state policies and ‘external’ regulations in global value chain dynamics.
The institutional dimension of value chains constitutes the main focus of Benoit Daviron's account (Chapter 3) that seeks to historicise the evolution of African countries' participation in international trade through the lens of the ‘Food Regime Perspective’. Under successive food regimes, Daviron argues, the position of developing regions in world food markets is shaped by the existence of evolving ‘global norms’ that ‘define’ the objectives and instruments of agricultural policies implemented at the national level. In particular, Daviron underscores how African food exports to Europe increased during the period of the ‘imperial autarchy regime’ (from about 1914 to the late 1950s) characterised by growing infrastructure development in the colonies and the introduction of discriminatory mechanisms against non-empire imports. Accordingly, Daviron posits that the marginalisation of Africa from international trade during the periods of the ‘multilateral regime’ (ending in the 1970s), and the ‘globalization project’ (after the 1970s) can be interpreted as the direct effect of protectionist policies implemented by Europe and the US to attain self-sufficiency.
Taken as a whole, Globalization and restructuring of African commodity flows is premised on the assumption that the development prospects of African countries can be inferred by examining data on export-oriented production and trade as an indicator of economic ‘upgrading’ and national integration in the global market. The authors' overriding focus on single firms and commodity chains calls into question, however, the explanatory power of such a relatively narrow unit of analysis when applied to the study of national and regional economic development. Similarly, by conceptualising the organisation of commodity chains as an expression of vertical relationships between buyers and sellers, the collection of essays fails to fully account for the role played by local power relations and historically-derived class, race, and gender structures in shaping the livelihood and employment opportunities of chain participants. Likewise, the significance of the authors' findings could be strengthened through a deeper analysis of the political, social, and ecological relations in which commodity chains are embedded, paying more attention to labour and the impact of commodity production and trade on local communities, economies, and environments. Such considerations aside, this book has much to offer graduate students and scholars interested in the historical development of African export markets, the impact of liberalisation on the structure of commodity chains, the role played by quality management and control in international trade, and the distribution of economic power along production chains.