Lift trade barriers to promote food security, says World Bank

By John Oyuke

The World Bank has advised African countries to remove cross-border restrictions on food trade if the continent is to attain food security.

The Bretton Woods institution said Africa’s farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent if web of rules, fees and high costs strangling regional food trade were removed and large swathes of uncultivated land put to productive use.

 It has said in a new report that the continent would also generate an extra $20 billion (Sh1.7 trillion) in yearly earnings if African leaders could agree to dismantle trade barriers that blunt more regional dynamism. “Africa has enough fertile farm land, water, and favourable climates to feed itself, yet it is forced to import ever-larger amounts of food from outside the region to meet rising demands from families across the continent,” it said.

The report, Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing Barriers to Regional Trade in Food Staples, has been released on the eve of African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.

AU Commission will host the summit, around the theme, Boosting Intra-African Trade: A key to Agricultural Transformation and Ensuring Food and Nutrition Security, from October 29 to November 2.

The Bank report urges African leaders to improve trade so that food can move more freely between countries and from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages.

The Bank expects demand for food in Africa to double by the year 2020 as people increasingly leave the countryside and move to the continent’s cities.   World Bank Vice President for Africa, Makhtar Diop said Africa has ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families.

However, he added that this potential is not being realised because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to market than anywhere else in the world.