COMESA, EAC to triple horticulture growth

AFRICA: BETTER days for horticulture are in the offing, as a new player in two regional economic communities (RECs) seeks to unlock the full potential of a multibillion-dollar industry for jobs and wealth creation for youths and women.

Public and private sectors of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC) have joined forces to triple growth of the horticultural industry in a decade’s period.

The two RECs will in March 2024 roll out a COMESA-EAC Horticulture Accelerator (CEHA) and its marshal plan to fasttrack growth of the industry, beginning with avocado, onion and Irish potato value chains.

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“Avocado, onion, and Irish potato can generate a combined 230 million US dollars per year for approximately 450,000 smallholder farmers of a minimum farm size of 0.4 hectare with 60 avocado trees, or 1 hectare for onion farmers,” the CEHA Coordinator, Mr Apollo Owuor, said.

Other value chains, such as tomato and cabbage may be added in future as will be recommended through the CEHA structures, Mr Owuor told a maiden stakeholders’ meeting for Tanzania chapter in Arusha, under the auspices of the country’s champion of horticultural industry, TAHA.

“CEHA targets to achieve 12 key performance indicators, including increasing intra-regional trade in fruits and vegetables to 25 million US dollars and global exports from 416 million US dollars in 2021 to 950 million US dollars by 2031,” Mr Uwour told the meeting in Arusha recently.

The idea is to harmonise COMESA-EAC fragmented regulatory and standard policies, coordinate production chain, address poor storage and transportation snags for perishable crops and ensure availability of quality and sufficient seeds.

“For instance, some ports within the EAC that serve the rest of landlinked countries lack what we call green lanes to fast-track clearance of perishable goods to the overseas markets, so CEHA seeks to tackle such a challenge,” he explained.

The volume of preserved or processed fruits and vegetables is also expected to double from 8 per cent in 2021 to 16 per cent in 2031, when time from farm-tomarket will decline by 50 per cent and the farm gate price will be reduced by 25 per cent.

Farmers and processors will through CEHA receive adequate and affordable finance and five policy-related barriers to trade will be removed, increasing value of fresh and processed horticultural products to 500 million US dollars and creating 100,000 additional jobs along the value chains.

While post-harvest losses will be halved from 40 per cent at the moment, yields in fruits and vegetables are expected to grow by 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively, with labour productivity standing at 25 per cent.

Farmers will be adopting climate-smart practices to maintain profitability, including by growing crops that are resilient to predicted changes in local weather patterns, the official of CEHA headquartered in Lusaka, Zambia, said.

Building the capacity of the horticultural industry across Eastern and Southern Africa is in the 2021-2031 Strategic Plan of the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), a specialised agency of COMESA tasked to integrate smallholder farmers into domestic, regional, and international markets. On its part, the EAC also prioritises the potential for horticulture in its Fruit and Vegetable Strategy 2021- 2031.

CEHA will, among other things, co-ordinate primarily private sector-led investments into production and processing clusters in support of the COMESA, EAC and individual country horticultural strategies. Moreover, it will facilitate access to both working capital and capex finance, as well as to technical assistance for processors, farmers, and other agribusinesses across the value chains to accelerate growth.

“CEHA also envisions mobilising individual horticultural growers to form farmer’s organisations in a bid to have bargaining power and ease purchasing process, access to finance, among others, for them to go commercial and reap benefits of their hard work, as part of a broad strategy for addressing a historical injustice to farmers,” Mr Owuor explained.

Five countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have been selected in the accelerator drive, basing on financial contribution of the industry to their economies. In Kenya alone, avocadoes and Irish potatoes are estimated to have the potential for creating more than 50,000 and 380,000 additional jobs, respectively.

In Tanzania and Uganda, the onion value chain is expected to capitalise on strong brand quality and growing demand to create more than 230,000 rural jobs.

Currently at 4 billion US dollars, high value fruits and vegetables are consistently more profitable than cereals and other traditional staple crops, and their demands at both domestic and export markets keep on increasing.

The horticultural industry offers significant potential for improving the financial urgency among women, given the 50-per cent proportion of female workers are along the value chains, from farming to processing and marketing.

Officiating at the first stakeholders’ meeting, the Director General for Cereals and Other Produce Regulatory Authority (COPRA), Ms Irene Madeje Mlola, pledged to work closely with TAHA to maximise benefit from CEHA.

“COPRA will in cooperation with TAHA position the country to play its rightful role in spurring COMESAEAC intra-regional trade for horticulture through harmonisation of regulatory and standard policies, among others,” Ms Mlola explained.

The TAHA Acting CEO, Mr Anthony Chamanga, said, in turn, that CEHA offered a new impetus towards unlocking the potential of horticultural industry in COMESA and EAC RECs.

“We at TAHA are proud to become a CEHA board member, our work ahead is to position Tanzania’s horticultural industry for it to benefit from the incubator. “We’ve become the first country to host this maiden stakeholders’ meeting, meaning we’re setting the environment for the organisation to work,” said Mr Chamanga who doubles as TAHA Chief Development Manager.

With huge arable land, abundant water and political will, Tanzania has all it takes to be a predominant horticultural crops producer. However, to achieve the feat, the country needs others to move even faster.