Announcement

2nd Annual Grain Trade Summit Discusses Africa's Food Security

"Structured Trade: Staying the Course"

Nairobi, Kenya  | Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) recently hosted a very successful and timely 2nd Grain Trade Summit from the 18th-19th  April 2007 at the Nairobi Intercontinental hotel. This year’s summit  attracted over 250 participants from all over the region as well as several prominent international speakers including Wayne Bacon, the former president of the Grain and Feed Trade Association (GAFTA), a trade organization that represents much of the international grain industry worldwide and has developed contracts and arbitration mechanisms that are used in most international grain trading. Mr. Bacon’s insights were particularly appreciated by the participants as GAFTA has over 175 year’s experience in supporting grain trade and its members. Another important international guest, Mr. Lamon Rutten of Multi-Commodity Exchange of India, provided an overview of how commodity exchanges work in India and the potential for these trading mechanisms to work in Africa.  

The summit received strong local and regional industry support with over 20 companies providing over $50,000 in corporate sponsorships for the summit. USAID (through RATES) was one of the key implementing sponsors of the summit along with COMESA and the EAC. This 2nd summit was a follow-up to the 1st East African Grain Summit held in 2005 and focused on the region's progress to date on developing a more structured trading system.

The program was literally “jam packed” with regional speakers focusing on topics including commodity risk management and trade finance, commodity exchanges, warehouse receipt schemes, and how to integrate food aid into commercial grain trade. Case studies were provided on recent efforts to create commodity exchanges in Malawi and Ethiopia.  Overall, the sessions generated a great deal of discussion and participants were able to network and share success stories and lessons learned. The key message taken from the summit is that the region needs to stay the course on further developing commercial grain trade and opening borders to trade. This cannot be done however at the expense of small holder producers. It is clear that initiatives need to be developed that provide a means for these players to participate in commercial trade by organizing and collectively storing their grain in certified warehouses.

With RATES and USAID Kenya’s Kenya Maize Development Project (KMDP) support, EAGC is now a fully registered organization and has a membership comprising key players from the regional grain industry including producers, traders, processors and service providers such as banks, insurance companies and the regional equity markets. The EAGC held its first AGM during the conference and elected Mr. Nick Hutchinson of Unga Mills as the new Chairman of the Board along with 6 new board members.  For more information on EAGC please log on to www.eagc.org.