For more agricultural trade within the region: |22 July 2015

Seychelles hosts Comesa agriculture value chain workshop

For some time now, regional organisations have been promoting agricultural trade within their respective countries, with the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) going as far as proposing Madagascar as the breadbasket of the Indian Ocean.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) has not been an exception. It has set as one of its key mandates to facilitate regional trade through removal of trade barriers, with a vision to create a common market where goods, services and people are able to move freely across borders. This includes the need to remove barriers to agricultural trade and creating better linkages for farmers to markets and regional value chains. The expected result is to boost regional trade in agriculture commodities and services.

This vision has resulted in the second phase implementation of the Regional Programme in Agriculture (RIPA II) which aims at removing barriers to agricultural trade and better link farmers to markets and regional value chains. While it provides a platform for public-private partnership aimed at promoting investment in the regional value chains which are seen as quick means of increasing trade in agriculture commodities and services in the region, it is however felt that the countries, including Seychelles, prefer to trade with and import food from countries as far as Europe and even South America.

This is why a Comesa Sub-regional Commodity Value Chain Platform Workshop is currently being held at the Coral Strand Hotel, under the auspices of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The two- day consultative meeting is bringing together farmers’ organisations, the public and private sectors, investment agencies from Seychelles and Madagascar as well as representatives from the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) in order to review preliminary propositions under the programme and get feedbacks on selected value chains. At the same time, it will seek input from the stakeholders on how best to leverage the potential of the agriculture and fisheries sectors for increased trade in the region. Participants from the Comoros and Mauritius were also expected to be present but have unfortunately not made it to the Seychelles.

The delegates will during the two days share views and opinions on the sectors’ development strategies on challenges and opportunities including potential investment benefits. The result of which will be the setting up of a roadmap for completion and technical validation of RIPA II before the end of this year. It is also meant to contribute to the achievement of the 2014 Malabo Declaration targets, through which the African heads of state and governments have expressed the need to triple intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services by 2025.

With a view to achieving the Malabo targets, Comesa has also launched its industrialisation policy with a strong emphasis on agro-industrialisation through beneficiation and value addition. The organisation has also grouped the region into sub-regions in order to identify comparative advantages in agricultural commodity value chains with a view to increasing trade within and outside the sub-region.

“The expectations from this consultative meeting are high. Apart from networking and partnership building, we also need to build mutual understanding on the role of regional public-private platforms and identifying funding opportunities for value chains. As we deliberate together, we will share knowledge and experience and value each member state’s contribution towards the common goal. We are encouraged to focus on our complementarities within the sub-region while recognising and appreciating the diversities that exist within our individual member states,” commented economist Innocent Makwiramiti, senior private sector development officer at Comesa secretariat and former chief executive of the
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.

In his opening remarks, the principal secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, Michel Nalletamby, said that the conference will build consensus on sub-regional value chains in agriculture and fisheries through a consultative and inclusive process.

“We are here to deliberate on the common denominators in terms of commodity value chains and trade within the sub-region, for inclusive and sustainable development for Africa aimed at leveraging the potential of agriculture to alleviate poverty across the continent,” he said, adding that “adding value to agricultural commodities is certain to enhance commodity competitiveness in terms of trade within and outside the Comesa region”.

“It is therefore gratifying that the private sector and other stakeholders are here to share with us their vast knowledge and experience as we explore what can work and what cannot work.  We should definitely not try to reinvent the wheel but rather to generate practical and realistic solutions that will help us to make a difference through collective and concerted efforts,” Mr Nalletamby highlighted.

From a local point of view, Mr Nalletamby said that the government of Seychelles is committed to ensuring that agriculture contributes to the social and economic transformation of the country within the principles of CAADP.

He added that our main focus, in the context of Seychelles, is the need to ensure greater contribution of the local agricultural sector to the food and nutrition security of the country and thus, the continued support and development of the local sector are of paramount importance.

He took the opportunity to announce that with guidance from Comesa and the Nepad Agency, his ministry will soon finalise the Seychelles National Agriculture Investment Plan (SNAIP), with the Malabo commitments incorporated therein.

While he has singled out the private sector as a key driver of the transformation sought, he has insisted that the final beneficiary of all the efforts and interventions should be the local farmers and fishers who have been struggling to find markets for their produce, and ultimately the consumers.

He has called on farmers and fishermen to graduate from being producers of raw agricultural commodities to agro-processing and value addition in order to compete effectively in the national and regional market. 

“For this to happen, there is need for knowledge transfer and technology adoption by our food producers through initiatives such as small and medium enterprises development, on-farm processing and value addition of agricultural commodities,” the PS said.

It is hoped that the value chain workshopwill be a step in eliminatingbarriers that have inhibited trade in agricultural commodities within the region. These include taxes, bio-security concerns, air connectivity, volume of trade to and from the smaller countries and access to timely market information.