page_title: Agriculture in Benin
section_title: Regional and international agribusiness and trade
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in Benin / Regional and international agribusiness and trade
caption_attribution_description: The border crossing into Benin from Niger
context_page_description: Benin is predominantly a rural society, and agriculture in Benin supports more than 70% of the population. Agriculture contributes around 35% of the country's gross domestic product and 80% of export income. While the Government of Benin aims to diversify its agricultural production, Benin remains underdeveloped, and its economy is underpinned by subsistence agriculture. Approximately 93% of total agricultural production goes into food production. The proportion of the population living in poverty is about 35.2%, with more rural households in poverty than urban households. 36% of households depend solely upon agricultural production for income, and another 30% depend on crop production, livestock, or fishing for income.
  Cotton is the principal cash crop and accounts for 70% of export earnings. Cotton is mostly exported as bales with only 3% of total production processed locally, making the country heavily dependent on world cotton prices. Cashews, shea nuts and shea butter, pineapples, palm products, and some cocoa and coffee also are export crops.
context_section_description: Benin serves as a delivery corridor for West Africa reaching more than 100 million people in the landlocked countries of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and the northern states of Nigeria. Goods landed in Cotonou get placed on trucks first heading north to the border towns of Malanville in Benin and Gaya in Niger and then onto the rest of the Sahel. Parakou is the major crossroad town in Benin, where goods going west to Togo, Ghana, and Burkina Faso pass, and goods going into Nigeria transit before heading to various border crossings. The Sèmè/Kraké border crossing with Nigeria along the coastal road is a major trade nexus for many of the agricultural products imported into Benin.
  Benin's traditional trade links with the European Union, in particular France and Belgium, remain strong. There is presence of Chinese foodstuffs in the open-air markets and supermarkets. Benin's major trade partners include Nigeria, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, China, and the United Arab Emirates.
  The major regional trading partners include Niger, Togo, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. Estimates of annual trade with these countries are extremely hard to determine, but some sources indicate that as of 2014 Benin exported about 15,000 tons of corn and 1,500 tons of rice to Nigeria, 6,000 tons of corn to Niger, 1,400 tons of corn and 2,000 tons of rice to Togo. Vegetables and animals move across these borders in large amounts in regular patterns. In “crisis years” where local crops are underproduced, Benin has sourced as much as 9,500 tons of corn and 950 tons of rice from Togo, and 6,000 tons of rice and 1,800 tons of corn from Nigeria. Nigeria's 170 million people and the country's income from oil also influence the economy of Benin significantly. Informal trade between Nigeria and Benin is substantial. Importers take advantage of Nigeria's high tariff changes and porous borders to export unrecorded rice, poultry products and other food and agricultural products to Nigeria. Trade sources estimate that more than 85% of these types of products that are shipped to Benin are meant for onward sales into Nigeria through informal cross-border trading activities. While Nigerian brokers can travel up to farms in Benin to buy vegetables, local buyers often transport their fruits, mostly pineapple and oranges, to markets on the Benin-Nigeria border. The Sèmè/Kraké border market is the best known market of the country for pineapple and orange transactions, where Nigerian brokers load up vehicles bound for Nigeria. This border crossing is also where the majority of other imported agricultural products leave Benin for Nigeria, including palm oil, rice, refined sugar, and poultry meat. According to border-based sources, Kalalè, Caldel, and Onazal in Benin are the three major border towns for the routes of cross-border trade with Nigeria. However, women carrying baskets filled with yams and other items regularly pass over the border at Chikandou in central Benin heading to the Nigerian town of Tchikanda.
caption: Border crossing between Benin and Niger
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