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Australia eyes COMESA partnership to link farmers with export markets

COMMENT - There are very good alternatives to expensive imported fertilizers and pesticides. The use of organic fertilizers is based on the recycling of nutrients. The use of animal manures, green manuring and compost/irrigation should be looked into.

Australia eyes COMESA partnership to link farmers with export markets
By Mutale Kapekele
Fri 26 Mar. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THE Australian government has expressed interest in partnering with COMESA's Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) in linking small-scale farmers to export markets.

Briefing journalists on Wednesday, Australian Aid principle adviser Dr Alwyn Chilver said ACTESA was in a good position of serving small-scale farmers better and helping them to graduate to commercial farming.

He disclosed that Australia aid has engaged in talks with ACTESA to discuss details of support and how it could be done.

"The ACTESA agenda is concrete and will contribute to food security in Africa," Dr Chilver said. "Australia is concerned about the food situation on the continent and we would like to support programmes that will improve food security."

He said his government was willing to provide farming systems expertise to assist small-scale farmers.

"It is clear that when we facilitate maize marketing, that will have a lot of impact," he said. "There are many ways in which we can help especially with market systems and we will over the next few months try to understand the situation."

And ACTESA chief executive officer Dr Cris Muyunda said after consultations, the alliance had identified areas of collaboration with the Australia government.

"We are looking at supporting ACTESA in policy advocacy, building institutional capacity and modalities for sharing lessons," Dr Muyunda said.

"Marketing is a big issue and we are working towards brokering sustainable markets. If the market is not sustainable, producers are de-motivated. As an alliance we have a broad commodity mandate and we have to make sure we have the capacity to find markets in the long term."

He said the alliance was working at building stronger agro dealer networks in the COMESA member states and beyond.

"Landlocked countries like Zambia have a big challenge of accessing farming inputs which disadvantages most farmers," he said.

"Most fertilisers, especially top dressing come from outside and increases transport landing costs which in turn makes the inputs expensive. ACTESA is looking at increasing the number of agro dealers to 700 in each of the eight landlocked countries in the next three years."

He said increasing the number of agro dealers in landlocked countries would reduce the cost of farming inputs significantly.

Dr Muyunda also said ACTESA was pushing to influence policymakers towards building strategies directed at agriculture infrastructure development.

Labels: ACTESA, AGRICULTURE, COMESA

posted by MrK @ 3:25 PM