Priority Intervention Requirements to Enhance the Capacity of Sub Saharan African (SSA) Countries to Improve the Volume and Quality of Agri-food Exports -The cases of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Ghana

Case Study 4: Enhancing Access to Export Markets by Sub-Saharan African Countries through Sustainable Investment for Improved Quality and Quantity of Agri-food Commodities: The cases of Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana

Status of productivity and production volumes contributing to export trade of the agri-food commodities.
Potential impact of the agri-food commodities to improve rural livelihoods and attain sustainable development goals (SDGs)
Requirements to enhance the productivity and quality of the agri-food commodities for the export markets.
How to ensure environmental and socio-economic sustainability

All the four agri-food commodities share similar characteristics of low productivity and therefore countries cannot satisfy potential demand for the commodities in the international markets. This is due to low levels of deployment of technology and capital and hence suboptimal application of good agricultural practices by smallholder farmers, suboptimal practices in value addition and failure to market crops and livestock from these countries.
The four agri-food commodities, namely, cassava, banana, goats, and cocoa, are produced by smallholder farmers, who constitute most citizens in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana, respectively. Interventions to improve productivity and quality of the commodities, coupled with increased producer prices and farm incomes, are expected to improve rural people livelihoods, and attain some of the SDGs (please see Point No. 7 of this summary).
Most of the interventions required to motivate and enable farmers to enhance the productivity and quality of the agri-food products for the export markets can be achieved by improving the funding and management of research and extension services functions provided by both government and private sector operators. They include, for example, deployment to enhance access by farmers to improved seed varieties (cassava, banana, and cocoa) and animal breeds (goats); replacement of old plants (cocoa trees); uprooting undesirable shrubs and planting new fodder plants (goats); and adequate sub-soiling before planting of cassava stocks. However, some of the interventions require changes in approach and policies in favour of the agri-food value chain. These include: (i) rural credit; (ii) agro-processing facilities; (iii) warehouses and cold chain; (iv) contract farming; (v) organic farming: traceability and certification; and (vi) Coops strengthening.
The recommendations on how to ensure environmental sustainability for the selected commodities included: (i) assurance that crops like banana and cocoa can stay on one spot for more than 30 years and survive on recycles farm vegetation used as mulching; (ii) but equally important is to support and encourage farmers to abide by good agricultural practices, which render unnecessary to increase land area to produce more; and, (iii) use of good manufacturing practices during value addition thus minimizing pollution.
The recommendations on how to ensure socio-economic sustainability for the selected commodities included strengthening oversight institutions responsible for labour laws to ensure adherence and compliance to labour and wage laws.

all the four countries have established public sector institutions and laws that govern the conduct of the studied agri-food commodities. They relate to the promotion and development of specific commodities (e.g. Ghana Cocoa Board – COCOBOD), provision of research and development support (e.g. Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation – NARO), sustainable environmental management (e.g., National Environmental Management Act – NEMA in Tanzania and Uganda), sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) and plant protection, veterinary services, food and drugs standards (Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA), standards of manufactured or agro-processed products (e.g. Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and Ethiopia Standards Institute (ESI), investment code to safeguard foreign investments overseen by agencies such as Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), employment act safeguarding the rights of children and women, occupational health and safety and contract laws (e.g. Tanzania’s Occupational Safety and Health Authority – OSHA); and those for promoting export trade (e.g., Ethiopia Export Promotion Agency – EEPA and Tanzania Trade Development Authority – TANTRADE).

All the four countries have in place overall policies on agricultural and livestock development, environmental protection policies, land use policies, forestry policies, and export promotion policies. The respective sector ministries oversee policies and are enforced using some legislations and in some cases the formation of a dedicated agency. However, some of the policies were dated and required updating. The policies, just like the respective legislations, were enacted to encourage compliance and be in harmony with those of member countries in the respective regional blocs.

Those related to reducing the unit cost of production (e.g. a farmer applying good agricultural practices and managing to attain cassava tuber yield of 30-40 metric (mt) per hectare (ha) will fetch more income per unit area farmed than that who fails to invest in sub-soiling and gets only 3-4 mt/ha) and enhancing the quality of produced and processed products, thus attracting higher prices per unit produced. Capacity building of producers and processors to observe international markets requirement helped to ensure that the commodities from these countries remained competitive and were not restricted from entry into specific markets such as the European Union.

Mixed methods approach using: (i) secondary data to understand historical, current, and projected trends of production and export of the selected commodities. Sources included official reports by public institutions and international agencies such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), International Centre on Sustainable Trade Development (ICSTD) and International Trade Centre (ITC); and (ii) interviews with purposively selected stakeholder representatives, i.e. producers, input suppliers, extension workers, processors and exporters along the value chains of the four commodities. Tools for Key Informants Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were applied to gather views from the stakeholders.

Among the data/information gathered included trend of land area in use to produce the commodity, productivity per unit area/animal, total production, amount processed, amount exported, technologies in use and organizational and institutional arrangements of the producers, processors, and exporters. Also interrogated to gather views on priorities for required interventions to enable countries produce and export more commodities that comply with international market requirements.

Enhanced understanding of current situation and the drivers for the observed levels of productivity, quality of commodities, volumes exported to regional and international markets.
A clearer and evidence-based understanding based on (a) above, regarding required priority technical, administrative/institutional and policy interventions needed to improve productivity, quality and surplus quantities that meet international market requirements.
Enhanced understanding of international market potential and the requirements and conditions to access them. A clearer and evidence-based understanding based on (c) above, on required priority technical, administrative/institutional and policy interventions needed to enable stakeholders along those commodity value chains improve productivity, quality and surplus quantities that meet international market requirements.