Impact of Government Policies on the Performance of the Livestock-Meat Subsector

Abstract

The livestock-meat subsectors in many subsaharan countries are operating at low levels of technology, productivity and commercialization. Reasons for the phenomenon involve political, social, physical and economic factors. This chapter focuses on the economic factors as they relate to government pricing policies. Pricing policies are a mechanism by which governments in less developed countries try to achieve specific economic and social objectives. A graphical display of the impact of government price controls illustrates the short-run and long-run effects on the development of the livestock-meat subsector. The government's ability to maintain stability in the markets with subsidies consequently fails because foreign exchange is usually limited for importing the meat necessary to satisfy increasing deficits. Private individual’s arid government agencies participated in varying degrees in the wholesaling and retailing activities in each country. Government encroachment into the private sector, in terms of prices and quotas for livestock supplies to butchers, led to recurring meat shortages.