Country Economic Memorandum for Sao Tome and Principe - Background Note 10 : What are the Obstacles to Agricultural Development in STP? A Review of Current Agriculture Production Structure and Potential

Arias, Diego ; Horton, John ; Valdivia, Pablo

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY;    AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;    SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES;    SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION;    CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT;   

RP-ID  :  139091

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This note presents an analysis of theobstacles and opportunities for STP’s agriculture valuechains, assesses the main sector risks, and provides aseries of public sector recommendations for increasedprivate sector investment. While the country will remain anet importer of food and agricultural products for theforeseeable future, a series of opportunities exist, some toincrease import-substitution, others to expand exports.Given STP’s land constraints and climate variability,importing food will continue to occur in the near tomedium-term future to satisfy local demand. However,import-substitution opportunities will continue to offerprospects centered on the feedstuff-livestock chain and thehorticultural sector, as well as some additional expansionof the palm oil industry. Export opportunities lie primarilyin cocoa products as well as in emerging non-traditionalagricultural exports, some strategically linked to tourism,especially eco-tourism already embraced by the governmentand by high end tourist developments established in the pastfew years. Analysis of the competitiveness of existing andemerging rural supply chains in STP reveals a series ofcharacteristics that allow to overcome the structuraldiseconomies of scale of a small island state. Thesecharacteristics include among others: (i) highvalue-to-weight products, (ii) agricultural products thatcan be taken with tourists, (iii) low perishability andproducts that can be stored, (iv) climate change resilience;and (v) explore the country’s uniqueness. Value chains thatpossess some of these key characteristics discerned from theanalysis offer private sector opportunities, provided theenabling environment allows them to reach their potential.