The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat signed a Memorandum of Understanding with nonprofit organisation Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), towards improving agricultural trade in the continent.
On the margins of the 39th African Union Summit over the weekend when the MoU was signed, Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, said the three-year ‘Agriculture Trade Action Plan’, was created to ensure better distribution of food products and solve enduring food insecurity for producers, processors and consumers across the continent.
“The continent of Africa in the last few years has been undergoing a food crisis. Africa has the grains but we continue to be a net food importer.” The Secretariat would leverage on the “technical skills,” and “the expertise of AGRA combined with trade tools to enable movement of agric products across the African continent.”
“The main objective is to reduce the cost of food import bill in Africa,” he added.
On its website, AGRA says it is an African-led institution focused on scaling agricultural innovations that help smallholder farmers to increase incomes, live better, and improve food security.
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Mene said the Secretariat had spent the last three years working on the plan that is expected to “reduce the cost of food and help to develop agro processing industries.”
“Ministers of trade will adopt it and take it to heads of state for adoption,” he said.
Alice Ruhweza, president of AGRA said the partnership was about “virtual water.”
“When we trade maize, citrus and processed dairy across borders, we’re also trading the water we use to produce them,” she said “And by integrating our markets, water-abundant regions can nourish water-scarce regions,” she said.
AGRA and the AfCFTA said they will commit to protecting food systems from drought and floods, by linking food corridors and food baskets into agro-processing zones that utilise sustainable water management
“We will empower smallholder farmers to ensure the free trade prosperity reaches farmers and youth who farm our land and protect our streams,” they promised, with the end goal being that “ no child goes to bed hungry.”
“Let this partnership prove that when Africa trades with itself, it feeds itself,” Ruhweza said.
