Twenty-five years ago, a vast share of the poor and middle-income countries, covering a large share of the world's agricultural areas and farmers, were characterized by state-controlled supply chains for agricultural and food commodities. This was most extreme in the Communist world, spreading from Central Europe to East Asia, where the entire agrofood system was under strict control of the state. However, as in many African, Latin American, and South Asian countries, the state played a very important role in the agrofood chain. For example, in Brazil and Mexico, wholesale markets were run by the state; in South Asia, the state heavily regulated food markets, and many African commodity markets and trade regimes were controlled by (para-statal) stateorganizations. In many of these countries, the state played an important role in agricultural production and marketing in the decades after independence from colonial power. Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were heavily involved in agricultural marketing and food processing through the creation of marketing boards, government-controlled cooperatives, and parastatal processing units. These government institutions were often monopoly buyers of agricultural products, especially for basic food crops and important export crops.
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