Stakeholders in the grain sector will gather in Dar es Salaam next month to lay down a 10-year strategy to address regional food challenges and trade barriers in African countries.
The summit will seek to drive tangible policy reforms for the grain sector to strengthen intra-regional trade in Africa, with the aim of driving industrialisation and propelling economic expansion on the continent.
The seventh Africa Grain Trade Summit, which is organised by the Eastern African Grain Council (EAGC) in partnership with the government of Tanzania and supported by the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, comes at a time when the region is emerging out of a serious grain shortage.
“The forum will create room for a constructive dialogue to address pressing challenges inhibiting grain trade and food security in Africa in the context of an evolving global agriculture and trade landscape,” says Janet Ngombalu, regional programmes coordinator EAGC.
Ms Ngombalu said the issue of export bans, such as the one Tanzania put in place, will also be discussed during the summit, to come up with ways of forestalling such moves in the future.
Kenya faced one of the most severe maize shortages this year that forced the country to import grain from as far as Mexico. Kenya normally relies on imports from Tanzania and Uganda to bridge the annual maize deficit.
However, Dar stopped exports this year to protect its local stocks while Uganda did not have a good harvest.
EAGC and USAid’s East Africa Trade and Investment Hub brokered a deal that allowed Kenya traders to import maize and pulses from Ethiopia after bringing together Kenyan and Ethiopian traders in signing the trade agreement.
