Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples

frica’s growing demand for food has been met increasingly by imports from the global
market. This, coupled with rising global food prices, brings ever-mounting food import
bills. In addition, population growth and changing demand patterns will double demands
over the next 10 years. Clearly, business as usual with food staples is not sustainable.
But there is a solution—and it comes from within Africa. Through regional trade, Africa’s farmers
have the potential to meet much of the rising demand, while providing substitutes for more
expensive imports from the global market.
This potential, however, has yet to be exploited because African farmers face more trade barriers
in accessing the inputs they need, and more trade constraints in getting their food to consumers
in African cities, than do suppliers from the rest of the world. Thus, African farmers now provide
only five percent of Africa’s imports of cereals.