Food soveignty, agricultural prices, and world markets

To ensure the food sovereignty of West Africa in accordance with ECOWAP's commitments, an in-depth assessment of the gap existing between the theory and the actual working of the world agricultural markets and prices is imperative. These world prices claimed to be the mandatory reference on which Western Africa should align its domestic prices to secure its development. But the world agricultural markets are poles apart from the perfect market of the free-trade theory advocated by the international Institutions and developed countries, and the supply and demand of agricultural products do not react like those of other goods. "The" world agricultural price does not exist and the agricultural prices of the EU and US are not prices of a market economy since they are much lower than the average production cost without subsidies. So that, paradoxically, the import protection of agricultural products is the least protectionist way of supporting farmers for all countries. The last section sketches out some features of a strategy allowing that the necessary rise in the ECOWAS's common external tariff (CET) would not penalize the poor consumers.