A Survey of Crop and Livestock Marketing in Bolivia (Revised)

Report Introduction: This paper reviews the literature on Bolivian crop and livestock marketing, broadly defined to include such topics as transportation, food processing, and price policy. Significant changes in marketing have occurred since the 1952 revolution and subsequent agrarian reform, and these changes seem to have played a major role in raising campesino incomes in many parts of the country. For this reason alone, serious government attention to marketing is justified. There are other reasons, too, for being concerned with marketing. Export surpluses of sugar, rice, cotton, and beef have sometimes been difficult to sell. In late 1976, for example, Bolivia's rice stocks were equivalent to 3 years' domestic consumption. Bolivian beef has a poor reputation for quality. High transportation costs limit overseas markets for the above commodities and for potential future exports such as corn and soybeans. Failure to market export surpluses has obvious depressing effects on farm prices and incomes. The low rate of capacity utilization of oilcrop processing plants is an indication of another set of marketing problems which includes inattention to the use of by-products for balanced livestock feed. Other issues with which the government should be concerned are weights and measures, grades and standards, storage and handling, and the promotion of marketing cooperatives.