Tropicultura (Jan 2016)
Intégration spatiale des marchés ruraux et urbains de la banane à cuire dans le Sud-Est de la Province du Sud du Rwanda
Abstract
Integration of Rural and Urban Cooking Banana Markets in the South-East of Rwanda Southern Province. This study consists of the analysis of spatial integration of rural and urban markets of cooking banana iin the South-East of Southern province of Rwanda. It uses time series of 2001-2006 period resulting from a survey on agricultural products commercialization in rural and urban markets. The analysis used the methods of co-integration and error correction model (ECM). The results of the study show that there is, in general, weak price transmission between rural and urban markets of cooking banana. Hence rural and urban markets of cooking banana are weakly integrated. The weak integration of markets means that there exist unexploited opportunities of arbitration that would have led to the creation of "geographical monopolies" because, on each rural market, there are traders who collect the cooking banana to sell it only on the same market. This weak spatial integration of rural and urban markets can result from poor commercial infrastructures (roads and communication infrastructures) and the lack of information on market (supply, demand and price). It would be necessary to develop and improve the commercial infrastructures for improving the spatial integration of cooking banana rural and urban markets in the South-East of the Southern province of Rwanda. Market integration can in turn lead to the specialization of producers of cooking banana and to the increase of cooking banana production.
