The Impact on Farmers of Privatizing Parastatal Agricultural Monopsonies

Abstract

International Financial Institutions have advocated the privatization of integrated agricultural monopsonies in developing countries with the hope that competition between private firms under a contract farming system would reduce inefficiencies in production and enable farmers to obtain a higher share of world commodity prices. Using a very simple theoretical model, this paper shows however that the impact of privatization and contract farming may not be positive for all farmers.