A recently released dispatch says that, as of last month, 43 Tanzanian companies had sold agricultural products in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

That came to selling goods to 18 countries with which our country shares no borders, and it was our Industry and Trade minister for the portfolio who issued this update – at the launch of the 2025/2035 national implementation strategy for the continental trading zone.

There is still a lot of doubt on the range of commodities that African countries can sell to one another owing to having the same or similar goods, just differing in terms of who has more of the grain produce.

It was not surprising hearing that over 70 per cent of the traded agricultural products in the new trading sphere were food crops like rice and cash crops such as coffee.

The respective authorities are meanwhile still working on how to align domestic trade systems with continental market potential – an effort that can be especially complicated.

When it comes to the food prices, our export performance will be influenced by efforts so stem price rises for basic staples like maize, rice or beans at the local level.

This often risks undercutting what economists know as competitive advantage in the trading zone in that producers will have limited profit margins as they can’t target export markets precisely enough.

There is a policy thrust of expanding industrial capacity and innovation among entrepreneurs so that they make use of markets as they open up, a leveraging aspect that works better for more distant markets.

Yet even in the latter case the really sensitive grain is maize, as it is the more sought after staple depended upon by large numbers of the urban working classes.

This is where a noticeable price increase sets policy makers to a rethinking of the grain marketing policy, eliminating middle men and thus inhibiting price hikes. In a sense, owing to price sensitivity, grain pricing is incapable of being ordered by market principles.

When policy makers talk of strengthening the competitiveness of the private sector, increasing SMEs’ production capacity, promoting trade in services and regional cooperation being listed in the trade strategy, this basically presumes that produce which isn’t price risky when exported in substantial amounts. 

Alternatively, there is a chance of these products being exported in substantial amounts if there are large farms incapable of offloading produce into urban markets satisfactorily. That is where private investment can make a difference, as profit margin is higher for the labour costs it makes.

There is similarly the lingering worry about enabling women and youth to benefit from cross border trade, especially in promoting intra-regional online businesses – where some well-trading produce especially in horticulture can be expected to succeed.

It is a sphere where personal innovation and niche markets work better than seasonal planting of maize or rice and where personal initiative is limited, and this has little to do with gender or age group.

Value-added spheres where innovation is conducted for specific markets is more suited for proactive lending or market counselling, while staples are tuned merely to grain type, quality or price.

In that context, the various sets of producers can find room for market expansion, strengthening competitiveness and creating employment opportunities and product innovation.