Yes, i missed out cotton....its a big crop in west africa...its grown on a much smaller scale here. Yeah, its a general problem in many developing countries, probably more apparent in some than others...
That 19th century period you have mentioned is very relevant . That was early industrial revolution/ colonial expansion / import of valuable commodities (spices/coffee / tea....) from the orient...This sort of hedging on commodities was primarily driven by ships transporting such goods across perilous ocean waters. People hedging bets on whether the goods would arrive on time or not at all... The case of the Producers having a fair say in matters would not arise for items imported from abroad - and it makes them all the more profitable. far from existing for "historical" reasons, or having been started off
by "speculators", commodity markets in agricultural produce originated in producers trying to protect themselves from swings in prices due to fluctuations in demand and supply - agriculture being vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations. commodities trading originated in 19th century chicago, and allows farmers to lock in contracts for prices in narrow price bands. price speculation exists, as with any market, but smoothes out fluctuations that would be much more frequent without market trading.
You have hit the nail on the head here. There has been talk of bringing the producers closer to the markets for ages, there has been little practical success. Most of these initiatives to date have resulted in the UN and various NGOs carpet bombing africa with aid dollars..... Using coffee as an example again - a lot of the trade is done directly by proxies for the coffee majors in the auction centres in the kenyan port of mombasa. Its not that the coffee majors are unaware of the imbalance in the prices at which they buy, and the profits they make. Clearly imported raw commodities are extremely profitable in the commodity bourses, otherwise everyone would be trading on futures for mp3 players, flat screen televisions, sub-compacts form korea... What might really work is a sort of regulatory mechanism which would be implemented in the commodity bourses in europe for specific imported commodities - which allocates liability to the purchaser (that the goods were imported at a fair price...) ...This has been done before, for instance for energy (the pollution didnt kill anybody) / gemstone (in the case of sierra leone.. ) / timber (didnt come from illegal logging ) to be traded in these markets... In my opinion a mechanism like that would be more feasible and of immediate impact than connecting people using mobile and internet technologies.... the problem is not the trading itself; as with many aspects of free
markets, the problem is a _lack_ of sufficient free trade. in this case, the fact that the small african cocoa producers do not have direct access to trade contracts in the commodities markets, leaving them exposed to price fluctuations while middlement profit. but this is an area that technology (mobile phone access to markets) is changing.
