Trade barriers to threaten food security

AFRICAN countries should eliminate trade barriers to achieve food security on the continent, the Zambia Food Reserve Agency’s Provincial Marketing Coordinator, Martin Mangenda, said at the Annual Regional Food Security Policy Dialogue 2010 in Windhoek.

Mangenda was responding to a question from the panel as to whether the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) has achieved their goal of alleviating poverty and achieving food security in Africa.
“How can we expect ourselves as Africans to achieve food security and alleviate poverty when we cannot transport food freely from one country to another?” Mangenda said.
He said trade barriers make it difficult for African countries to feed each other in terms of transporting and selling food from one country to another.
Mangenda further noted that it is pointless to say trade barriers are there to protect local farmers from cheap products coming into the country because with that, food security cannot be easily achieved.
“Our leaders need to harmonise and take away some trade barriers so that in the future, we won’t have one country starving while its neighbour has enough surplus,” he said.
He said apart from trade barriers, the transportation of food around the African continent is also affected by a lack of roads between countries.
– Nampa

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