Strengthening Africa’s trade links through stronger sanitary processes

There are many aspects to tackling Africa’s food security problem. This includes an often-overlooked need to strengthen the food value chain and trade links through better Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) processes. Without these, we cannot hope to improve plant health and food safety.

Food may need to come from a pest/disease free area, or require in depth inspection or specific treatment or processing to ensure only safe levels of chemicals in the food.

The rigorous application of such international SPS standards ensures the production, processing and trade of safe, high quality food. As a result, agricultural productivity will increase, value will be added to our goods, rural economies will be diversified and smallholder household incomes will be assured and increased.

The World Trade Organisation SPS Agreement sets out basic rules for the use of SPS measures, which are certainly needed to ensure trade is safe. But often a lack of information, knowledge or institutional capacity results in inability for countries to reduce hazards and consequently to improve their access to lucrative markets.  In some cases, countries have implied the phytosanitary threats have been mistakenly overestimated, creating (un)intentional trade barriers.

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In other cases, the risks are clear but there is inadequate ability in the value chains to manage and mitigate them. Inefficiencies in regulatory agencies may further increase the cost of trading – creating so called procedural obstacles. Many of these problems are rooted in lack of knowledge and technical capacity.

Africa is making great strides towards enhancing its SPS capabilities and Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) continues to play a role in helping countries create systems which help protect them from the entry, establishment and spread of exotic pests.

One example of this is our involvement in building stronger African food security in the Africa Plant Biosecurity Network which includes the 35 African biosecurity ‘champions’. These are important ‘actors’ who are helping to improve food security and safe regional trade throughout Africa.

CABI is also working with partners in other countries to enhance market access in the region and globally.

Kenya and China signed a MoU on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures last year; the signing comes in the wake of concerns of the rising trade imbalance in favour of China.

Yet one of the reasons for this trade imbalance is the failure of African countries to meet the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards of the export markets.

The recently signed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by African Heads of State bringing together 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of more than 2 trillion US Dollars presents a big opportunity but compliance to standards remains key to its success. 

Finally, CABI’s flagship programme, Plantwise, helps smallholder farmers through its network of plant clinics; providing essential and practical advice on how to deal with pests and diseases on their farms.

Doing this means mobilising more than just agricultural advisory services in rural areas, it means developing a country’s entire plant health system which includes researchers, policy makers, input suppliers, farmer organisations, NGOs, and more.

[The writer is CABI Kenya-based Director General – Development]