Analysis of world cocoa production trends and their production share coefficients (1975-1996)

Abstract

World cocoa production trend is influenced by a number of domestic policies, which in turn impact on permanent production shares of producing countries. Overtime, this trend will affect these countries foreign earnings capacities. It is on this basis, that this study attempts to analyze cocoa production trends as well as determining the sources of the world cocoa production growth trends between 1975 and 1996. A linear regression function, of the terminal and initial year production shares was first estimated to obtain the B1 coefficient which was further decomposed into its correlation coefficient and standard deviation. The results show that on the average, the world cocoa production trend and the contributions of the seven leading producers have all been on the increase. The permanent cocoa production share trends on a country-by-country basis show slightly different results. For instance, while the permanent production share for Ivory Coast was on the increase, those of Brazil and Ghana were on the decline. From the decomposed coefficient, the overall result shows that the large (major) producers had expanded their production shares among the leading producers and the new cocoa entrants as well as the relatively small ones. The countries, which tended to lose shares among the major producers, were Nigeria and Cameroun even though the trend for Nigeria is changing positively. The sources of world cocoa growth production over the period were from the new small and very large producing countries. In the area of market control, the study found the cocoa export market to be competitive because even the very large cocoa producing countries as a group would be unable to foreclose or influence the world prices.



[Niger Agric. J. 33 (2002): 10-16]