Speech

Closing Remarks to the First Regional Grain Trade Summit

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya William M. Bellamy

 | Thursday, October 13, 2005

Mr. Erastus Mwencha, Secretary General, COMESA,
Honorable Mukhisa Kituyi, Minister for Trade and Industry – Kenya
Honorable Kipruto arap Kirwa, Minister for Agriculture - Kenya
Dr. N.C. Egger, of the East African Community Secretariat

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you for inviting me here today as you close this historic First Regional Grain Trade Summit.  I am particularly glad that this is a “grain” and not “fruit” trade summit.  And I assure you that there will be no references to any type of fruit during my remarks.

The presence of all of you here this week is a clear sign that the East and Central Africa Community is taking the reins on regional trade issues and making important linkages within the COMESA/EAC region, including southern Africa, to ensure that more food gets to more people more efficiently. Experience demonstrates that improved trade regimes will lead to better, sustainable, increased food production and a reduction in food dependence on donor sources outside Africa.  That is the real goal of our food aid programs.  Judging from recent headlines, this couldn’t be more timely.

News of insufficient rains, poor harvests, grain deficits, hunger and malnutrition seem to come from every corner of sub-Saharan Africa these days, many of them from this region.

When an entire regional economic community comes together like this and deliberates on issues of policy harmonization, marketing, collateral management – issues where the needs of individual member states merge with overall regional requirements – we need to envision the faces of those on whom regional trade actually impacts.

I’d like to take a moment to consider that beneficiary:  the African maize farmer.This woman or man wrestles with the same sorts of agricultural constraints that impact the vast majority of Africans whose sole means of income is farming.  Her small plot of land gives less than it used to because the soil is eroding and has, for too long, been harvested without replenishment of nutrients to maintain fertility.

If she has harvested enough to feed her family and has enough left over to sell, there is the increasingly difficult task of getting it to market:  bad roads, or even no roads; long hauls to small markets crowded with many sellers and unpredictable prices.

And as hard as all this is, Ladies and Gentlemen, this farmer –  and increasingly we find it is a female farmer - is also sick with worry about the ones she left at home - the children or grandchildren she is caring for because of the AIDS pandemic.  In sub-Saharan Africa HIV/AIDS has infected more than 25 million people and has left fewer and fewer people to till the soil. The decline in land cultivation in Kenya alone has resulted in a paucity of cash crops such as coffee, tea and sugar.  Some parts of Rwanda are experiencing drops in the farm labor force of 60 – 80 percent because of sickness and deaths from the disease.

Keep these images in mind as you develop your plans and harmonize your practices.  Regional trade liberalization is a forceful weapon in the war against poverty, hunger and malnutrition. The overwhelming majority of developing countries that have embraced agricultural trade liberalization have done so to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty.

True, opening markets to improve regional trade takes courage. A far too common reaction for governments seeking to enhance food security via self-sufficiency is to encourage domestic production through protectionist practices that discourage trade while keeping food prices artificially high. 

But these practices don’t improve food security, in fact they do the opposite.  High internal prices penalize poor consumers, the weakest members of society, who then eat fewer meals with inadequate caloric intake.  Reducing their purchasing power undermines their food security.

Policies that result in high internal prices also impact on your neighbors.  Its most direct effect is to curtail the agricultural exports of countries and regions where food can be produced at lower costs.  For many of your neighbors, especially the poorest among them, how well they do economically depends on how well they do agriculturally.

Of course, improvements in agricultural output and export performance depend on a wide range of factors outside the trade policy sphere. But you are here because you know that a further reduction of trade barriers and trade-distorting subsidies will help boost the economic performance of every nation in this region.

Food security is a complex matter.  As you well know, there is a debate on the role that food aid plays in food markets. The food aid programs of the United States Government are designed to prevent disincentives and other possible negative effects on food markets and on food production. And, increasingly, US food aid is programmed not as a stand-alone fix, but in conjunction with other interventions designed to strengthen livelihoods and coping mechanisms.

There is less debate about the need for emergency food aid when people are on the brink of famine.  And unfortunately, this remains the case in many parts of this region. In the case of sudden-onset, man-made or natural disaster, food aid will always be required. This is currently the case in Darfur just as it was the case after the South Asia tsunami. Emergency food aid will always have a role to play in responding to crises.  In these situations the United States stands ready to assist through its USAID and US Department of Agriculture programs.  We will not abandon our humanitarian assistance programs. 

However, food aid alone will never resolve the food insecurity that exists in certain areas in this region. Food aid can solve short-term emergency needs, but cannot be the engine for long-term food security. As you have all discussed in the last few days, better developed markets is one of the solutions to improved food security in the region. Food aid is part of this market and needs to be considered as such – as an ally, not a competitor. As a source of supply, and not as a substitute.

The government of the United States is all too aware that development cannot be done by governments and donor countries alone. The private sector must be a key component of any successful, sustainable development program. This conference is an excellent example of the private and public sectors coming together to address issues impeding development. Through public-private partnerships such as the ones developed through the Global Development Alliance, you have one more strategy with which you can ensure working partnerships.

I’d like to thank COMESA, the EAC, the USAID Regional Mission, the Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Support Programs – RATES -  and other programs- for their work, not only on this conference, but for breaking the ground on commodity trading and the information systems needed to support that trade here in the East African region. I commend them for their unstinting commitment to bringing the region further along the path to a more mature marketing environment.

I urge all of you involved in regional grain trade, either in the private or public sector, to support the efforts of RATES< by embracing their “maize without borders” program both in deed and in word. Those of you with export bans, I hope you will reconsider them on behalf of your people and the new alliances you’ve made this week. I urge you to consider and adopt the new technologies that are available to increase competitive trade. Because, of the many things you may decide or adopt here this week, you will most importantly be raising the standard of living for the African farmer while improving the food security of the African consumer.

Good luck!

Thank you very much.