Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Creation and Development of Market Institutions
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Chapter 6 – Conclusions & Policy Recommendations
6.1 Conclusions
This report has presented an in-depth review of food and agriculture market systems, with a
goal of pointing out best practices and systems that may be adopted wholly or in part by OIC
Member Countries. As this report has highlighted, the effective functioning of agricultural and
food market systems depends on the support of a wide range of public and private sector
institutions.
The current report presents an analysis of the functioning of agricultural markets in OIC
Member Countries and the roles that agricultural market institutions play in improving or
impeding market performance. The analysis is based on an examination of the different stages
and processes in agro-food market systems, including production, handling, storage, transport,
processing, packaging, and distribution, and the roles played by market institutions in each
element of these market systems. The study covers the following subjects:
• Identification of both Government and non-Government agriculture and food market
institutions and institutional systems, and examination of their effects on agricultural
market performance;
• Assessment of specific market interventions, and of the regulatory power, market
influence, and overall impact of agricultural and food market institutions and
institutional systems on the supply and demand of agricultural commodities;
• Measurement of the effectiveness of market institutions and the role of both state and
non-state institutions and institutional systems in the agriculture and food sector;
• Identification of best practices by agro-food market institutions and systems, in both OIC
member and non-Member Countries;
• Policy recommendations for the OIC Member Countries, based on these assessments and
selected best practices, which can strengthen market institutions and systems and
improve market performance.
Agriculture differs from other sectors in many ways. Food security is foremost among these. In
even the most prosperous OIC Member Countries, food security is an important preoccupation,
especially since many of these countries are situated in some of the most arid parts of the
world, and cannot become self-sufficient, except at an uneconomic cost. Consequently, the
Governments and populations of many of these countries, even though they can easily afford to
buy staple commodities on international markets, have a sense of vulnerability when it comes
to securing adequate food supplies, and their agriculture policies, and the mandates of the
institutions responsible for their implementation, reflect this.
In other OIC Member Countries, many of them less-developed or developing countries,
agriculture remains the largest source of employment and livelihoods. In these countries, the
challenge – in addition to food security – is to increase agricultural productivity, enabling rural
populations to share in the benefits from economic growth, while ensuring adequate food
supplies and moderate prices to urban populations.
Yet another distinctive feature of agriculture is its place in the culture and identity of many
countries, both within and outside the OIC. The first agrarian societies emerged in Egypt and
the Levant, and agriculture consequently assumed, and retains, an important place in their