Tropical products suffered from dramatic price decreases since the 1980s. Indeed, the international real prices of major tropical agricultural products fell by between 50 percent and 86 percent from 1980 to 2002. Among these products, the situation of coffee and cocoa is dramatic. The prices of coffee on world markets, which averaged around 120 US cents/lb in the 1980s, were around 50 cents in the 1990s, the lowest in real terms for 100 years.

Consequently, the share of final prices received by farmers for unprocessed green beans has fallen dramatically from 64 percent of the US retail price in 1984 to just 18 percent of that price in 2001. For cocoa, the real price fell by as much as 6.9 percent per year between 1977 and 2001.This situation is mainly the result of a chronic oversupply. In the case of cotton, the price was reduced by half between 1997 and 2002, the lowest annual level in thirty years. This situation is partly due to the use of subsidies by some major exporters.

IFAP tropical products group: IFAP meetings on tropical products started in 1975, following the severe difficulties facing producers since the end of 1974. Discussions covered coffee, cocoa, tea, and natural rubber. Much emphasis was placed on international commodity agreements and revenue stabilization schemes, in line with UNCTAD’s integrated commodity program. The Group on Tropical Products of IFAP was officially established at the World Farmers’ Congress in Egypt in 2002 to deal with issues relating to coffee, cocoa and cotton. It held its first regular session in Pretoria, South Africa in May 2003.

Farmers agree that there is an urgent need for the international community as a whole to start thinking of long-term solutions in order to break the downward spiral, such as price stabilization mechanisms and; international agreements. One major role of IFAP is to ensure the involvement of farmers in managing the crisis in the tropical commodities markets.

Since the 1970s, the international prices of commodities have declined and both farmers in developing countries as well as developed countries have suffered from that. However due to their high dependency on a limited number of commodities, the reduction of agricultural commodity prices in developing countries, particularly in African countries, is one of the biggest causes of poverty.

The main challenge for farmers is how to get a better price in international markets. This price collapse is generally characterized by an oversupply and therefore would imply long-term solutions to address supply-demand management, inherent price volatility, high degrees of market concentration and a development-friendly outcome to the Doha Round of negotiations at the WTO (in particular addressing tariff escalation and export subsidies issues). These responses could be efficient if only in the meantime at national level, diversification is promoted in most of commodities dependent countries.

Commodity issues have always been a central part of the work of IFAP, from its beginnings in 1946. IFAP supported the establishment of the International Wheat Agreement in 1948, and throughout the 1950’s up to the 1970’s a central part of IFAP’s advocacy work was to press for international commodity agreements. IFAP also pressed the GATT to include consultations and negotiations on commodities as early as 1969.

There are many commodity problems that are common to all producers, such as low international prices, commodity support programs, measures to empower farmers in the market, traceability, etc. IFAP therefore created a Commodities Conference with a plenary session that is linked to meetings of the IFAP Executive Committee every year (usually in May). The 1st IFAP Commodities Conference was held in the USA in 1995.

The main objectives of the IFAP commodity activities are to:

• to primarily respond to the needs of IFAP’s members based on the recommendations made by the five commodities groups namely: Dairy products Grains and Oilseeds, Meats and feeds, Sugar, and Tropical commodities (cocoa, coffee and cotton), as well as other identified challenges in commodities markets.
• to ensure that farmers are fully involved in the on-going debates on long-term solutions of problems in the commodities markets. For that, IFAP would seek to strengthen its collaboration with specialized commodities organisations as well as international organizations (UNCTAD, Common Fund for Commodities…), research institutes and non-governmental organizations.
• to ensure that relevant information on commodities is available to all members and that it would serve as a platform for discussion and information sharing among members.