EAC embarks on plan to boost agro-exports

Arusha/Dar. The East African Community (EAC) has embarked on a special project in its effort to grow the agri-export trade and put the region on the right path to achieving its economic growth aspirations.

Under the project launched yesterday the regional bloc would create awareness about agri-export trade opportunities that have been created through the EU-EAC Market Access Upgrade Programme (MARKUP). MARKUP is a market access programme launched in 2018.

Through the campaign dubbed MARKUP Growing Agri-export Markets, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the agricultural value chain, co-operatives, and farmers, as well as government entities in the EAC, will access information and tools on agri-export trade.

Speaking during the virtual launch of a campaign yesterday, the acting director of trade at the EAC, Ms Flavia Busingye, said that MARKUP had created numerous trade opportunities for agri-SMEs in the region.

“The campaign aims to raise awareness of the opportunities in agricultural trade and to demonstrate that international markets are within reach of East African exporters,” Flavia said.

The EAC official noted that since its inception in 2018, MARKUP has generated useful resources for the growth of agri-exports in five EAC countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania.

As such, agri-food exports to the European Union (EU) from the East African bloc soared to 2.16 billion Euros last year.

Put together, coffee, tea, cocoa, and spices accounted for 44 percent of exports, followed by horticultural crop exports at 24 percent.

That represented an increase of 26 percent from the exports registered in 2021, according to Eurostat.

“Let me reiterate that the EU remains a leading export partner to the East African Community (EAC)”, Jose-Luis Gonzales, the EU programme officer in Tanzania and the bloc, said during the virtual launch.

He said during the event that tea, coffee, spices, and avocado from the region continue to hit the European market “in increasingly large quantities”.

Under the MARKUP framework, a million-euro programme was launched in order to assist farmers in the EAC partner states secure better markets for their fresh farm produce abroad.

The first phase of the programme, which was to last for four years, was also intended to increase the competitiveness of its agricultural exports to the bloc.

Mr Gonzalez said during the Zoom conversation that the implementation of MARKUP has seen some encouraging results.

For instance, in Kenya, the number of procedures to export coffee was reduced to 58 from 88 and from 40 to 31 in Tanzania.

This, he said, was just one illustration of what can be achieved “where there is trust and informed dialogue between the public and private sectors.”

Since its launch in June 2018, MARKUP has reached out to more than 30,000 farmers, businesspeople, experts, and policymakers in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, and Rwanda.’

The programme has supported 500 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to interact with buyers through trade fairs and other networking events.

More than 180 SMEs and cooperatives have received equipment such as coffee pulping machines and fruit processing equipment.

In the four years of MARKUP—2018 and 2022—exports of coffee and avocado from the EAC to the EU grew by 35 percent and seven percent, respectively.

And, according to Ms Busingye, Tanzania alone generated $33 million from the export of over 11,000 tonnes of avocado in 2021.

That, according to her, represented an increase of 12 percent from the previous year’s (2020) exports of the crop.

She said Tanzania’s avocado has great potential in the Netherlands “where an untapped $1.8 billion market exists”.

Uganda, on the other hand,has carved a name among the biggest coffee producers and exporters in the world.

Currently, it is ranked eighth on the list of top coffee exporters in the world and number two in Africa.