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Politics, the Cocoa Crisis, and Administration in Côte d'Ivoire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Richard C. Crook
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Extract

It is, no doubt, a journalistic cliché to assert that Côte d'Ivoire is ‘in crisis’. It is both undeniable and obvious that the world's largest cocoa producer, dependent for the majority of its foreign-exchange earnings and for the livelihood of the majority of its working population on the export of cocoa and coffee, is severely affected by the collapse in commodity prices which has occurred since 1980. With the exception of the false boomlet of 1986, cocoa prices have fallen throughout the decade, from a peak of £3,500 per ton in 1977 to the £670–750 range of the 1989–90 season. In real terms the dollar price of cocoa is now only 25 per cent of its 1977–8 value.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 649 - 669
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

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