text: Marketing networks have to be also incriminated, in particular for food products. Official marketing organisations are general­ ly ineffective and not competitive, and costly to run. I 11. Import policy also has an important influence on the produc­ tion of food: wheat and rice, imported on a massive scale in or­ der to satisfy basically urban consumer tastes, lead to a decline in local basic commodity prices (because in particular of the overvaluation of many ~frican currencies). 12. Generally speaking agricultural policies are conceived in capital cities, and producers, particularly women, do not take part sufficiently in their formulation. C. ~lomen, in the rural active population of Africa 13. Africa's population is estimated at 466 million in 1982. It is a young and rapidly growing population with young people under 15 years of age constituting 44 per cent while persons over 65 represent a mere 3.4 per cent. The average annual growth rate is 2.8 per cent, one of the highest. 14. The 'number of the female population slightly exceeds (plus 0.49 per cent) that of the males, with some variations in the. five different subregions. In the potentially active population group (15 to 64 years) the number of women exceeds also the num­ ber of men. 15. But generally, there is not in human societies a direct relationship between the sex ratio in the total population and the sex ratio in the economically active population. Traditional­ ly in fact, in most cultures, apart from domestic activities, the economic activity of women has been reduced, and in industrial­ ized countries it is'.. only recently that the activity rate of women has come to match that of men. In Africa, however; condi­ tions are quite different as pointed out already in the introduc­
analysis: The text appears to focus on the economic and social aspects of food production and consumption in Africa, highlighting the importance of agricultural policies, marketing networks, and population demographics. The text also touches on issues related to the role of women in the economy and the impact of import policies on local commodity prices. Given the specific focus on African food production and consumption, it seems likely that the text is related to economic development and agriculture.