Determinants of agricultural exports: The case of Cameroon

This paper investigates the determinants of three agricultural exports from Cameroonbetween 1971/72 and 1995/1996. Export supply functions are specified and estimatedfor the three export crops chosen: cocoa, coffee and banana. Quantitative estimatesobtained from the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation procedure indicate thefollowing: the response of export supply of all the crops to relative price changes ispositive, but fairly significant. This can be attributed to the price constraining nature ofthe international markets for these commodities. Changes in the nature of the road networkpositively affect the export supply of cocoa, coffee and banana. More credit to cropexporters has a significant and positive influence on the export supply of all the crops.Equally, rainfall’s influence on the growth of the three commodities is positive, butsignificant only for cocoa and coffee. Finally, structural adjustment dummies show apositive effect on the export supply of crops for policies implemented. These results point to two conclusions. First, the marginal sensitivity of crops to therelative price changes means that the price incentives are not sufficient to generate desiredexport supply of agricultural commodities in Cameroon. Second, the significant sensitivityof crops under consideration to the availability of credit to exporters, the improved roadnetworks and the specific policy changes implemented in the framework of the SAPimplies that attempts to increase the export supply of agricultural crops in Cameroon should focus on these variables