Policy and Institutional effects on market participation by smallholder rice farmers: case studies in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger

Rice sector contributes significantly to secure households with regard to their food needs but also to the creation of employments and income generation. The sector development and its evolution over the years have been marked by various policies and approaches. These development stages of the sector constitute nothing but the impact of the number of factors such as the rice policies put in place. A collaborative multi-country pilot study on policy and institutional arrangements effects on irrigated rice production and commercialization was conducted by WARDA and its country partners of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. In-depth surveys were carried out at both village and household levels to collect qualitative and quantitative data on irrigated rice production, commercialization, and irrigated schemes governance. A common critical constrain cited by the producers in these countries is the commercialization of their product and their inability to take advantage of the market opportunities. Using village and household levels survey data on irrigated rice production and commercialization, this paper attempts to examine the impact of policy and institutional factors in market participation by smallholder rice producers. A farm level supply is estimated using the quantity of rice marketed as the dependant variable and factors such as output and inputs price, and policy and institutional variables as independent ones. The preliminary results indicate that most significant explanatory variable is the average irrigated rice plot (Mali and Niger) and total area of other crops grown by the producer.