ATMA4FS: Agricultural Trade and Market Access for Food Security: Micro- and Macro-level Insights for Africa

LEAP-Agri: African European collaborative research on Sustainable Agriculture and Aquaculture and on Food and Nutrition Security

Project webpage ATMA4FS
LEAPAgri program
funding period 2018- 2021

Partners: Georg-August-University Göttingen, KU Keuven, Begien
Wageningen Economic Research, Netherlands
University of Ghana, Ghana
University of Pretoria, South Africa
University of Thiès, Senegal

funded by national funders: Universities Göttingen and Pretoria by Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (BMEL), Projektträger BLE

Summary


Agri-food markets in Africa are not well integrated at the local, region-al an international level, with trade barriers hampering exports/imports as well as the value chain development. Trade via better market ac-cess has the potential to create income and welfare, while improving the food security situation, i.e. providing people in Africa with suffi-cient food of an acceptable quality level at fair prices.
The projects aims at providing insights into opportunities and chal-lenges for expanding local, regional and international trade and mar-ket access, while considering supply chains from the African import-er/exporter perspective. Specifically, we address trade and market ac-cess issues in three African countries (Senegal, Ghana and South Africa) and two African trade regions (Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and Southern Africa Development Com-munity, SADC) and EU-Africa trade relations. The focus is on three product categories that are important for current and potential African trade: fresh fruits and vegetables, grain products as well as meat.
For the countries/regions and products, we investigate how trade and market access is influenced by trade agreements, non-tariff measures, e.g. sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barrier to trade and customs procedures and private standards, price trends and volatility, market logistics/infrastructure and institutions. For the analysis, we apply quantitative and qualitative methods to look into the effects on local, regional and international trade, at both the mac-ro- and micro-level. This includes obtaining first-hand information on the trade and market access issues that really matter and discussing with key stakeholders how to solve and overcome them.
In the project, African and European researchers work in close col-laboration so as to facilitate exchange and generate common contri-butions that help improve trade relations and market access in the interest of both Africa and Europe.