UN General Assembly
1979

111. In the area of agriculture, production as a whole started to decline in 1969. In 1978, the decline was 70 per cent of the initial global figure. The production of cotton, our leading export, declined from 60,000 tons in 1969-1970 to 28,000 tons in 1977-1978. That drop in agricultural production can be accounted for in a number of ways, 112. First, there is the fact that in order better to exploit the peasants Bokassa and his accomplices all set themselves up as official purchasers of agricultural products and through unpopular measures that could be contested by no one, had blocked the producers' purchasing prices while selling prices were constantly soaring in the markets of the world. 113. Then there is the fact that the organizations for agricultural credit that had been set up to give loans to peasants or producers' co-operatives were all in the hands of Bokassa and his accomplices. One had to belong to those circles in order to have any right to the services of those institutions.