Ghana and Togo: Determinants of Wheat Import Demand

With different market structures in Ghana and Togo, wheat quality plays a different role in the selection of a wheat supplier by millers in these countries. Competition among suppliers is stiff in Ghana, while the mill in Togo has a monopoly. Wheat quality is an important criterion for source selection by Ghanaian millers, despite the country's poverty, and is likely to grow in importance as the economy improves and the government relinquishes its control over wheat imports. The United States would likely increase wheat exports to Ghana in a liberalized environment if the level of nonmillable material (chiefly dockage and broken and shrunken kernels) were lowered. The United States already has most of the market in Togo, thus tighter cleanliness standards would have little impact. U.S. wheat, which generally has a higher level of nonmillable material than wheat from Canada, sells at a discount compared with Canadian wheat in the West African market. Selling cleaner U.S. wheat would assist U.S. exports, but millers would also profit from greater U.S.-Canadian competition.