The main policy objective in most developing countries where white maize is an important staple is to raise production and self-sufficiency by increasing area and/or yields. In the past, the principal price policy measures consisted of minimum producer prices, guaranteed procurement and import controls administered by parastatals. As the market liberalization process advanced in many countries, the wide variety of intervention measures regulating domestic production and international trade were either reduced to a minimum or abolished altogether.
In Latin America, price band policies have been widely used to support producer prices of white maize. The policy goal is to ensure that import prices are maintained between a floor and a ceiling price by applying variable import duties (FAO, 1994a, Chapter 2). Maize is covered by a price band mechanism in a large number of countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. In eastern and southern Africa, the main production policy instruments used were guaranteed minimum price schemes which have been removed in many countries in recent years.
Most of the recent initiatives on consumer price interventions in the developing countries, including those for white maize, reflect a trend towards subsidy reduction and price de-control. Such reductions in consumer subsidies have been most pronounced in countries of eastern and southern Africa. However, in a majority of cases, liberalization of maize and maize flour prices followed that for wheat and other cereals, a reflection of the fact that maize in these countries is more important than wheat as a staple food. Thus, in Kenya, although the retail price of maize flour in Nairobi was raised in 1992/93 by almost 70 percent, the consumer price was still regulated, in contrast to wheat prices which were freed completely. A similar pattern was seen in Mexico where, despite the lifting of retail price controls for most basic foods, including wheat products and rice in April 1994, consumer subsidies continue on tortillas primarily made from white maize8.
8 Some of the yellow maize imported into Mexico is used for the production of tortillas, which are sold at even lower subsidized prices than white maize tortillas.
