A three-year project aimed at strengthening competitiveness in export-oriented staple food value chains in East Africa has been launched.
Funded under the USAID Economic Recovery and Resilience Activities (ERRA) program, the project will focus on regional trade through key trade corridors in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya.
“In this program we are going to address various challenges that make it difficult for export of staple foods. One of these challenges is the issue of aggregation where we will be able to ensure production of sufficient quantities, but will also work on the issue of quality where we will address standards and aflatoxins to ensure that production is done using technology,” Gerald Masila, the Executive Director of EAGC said.
“We will also be providing solutions around trade finance because one of the challenges making it difficult for farmer groups and SMEs to export is lack of trade financing where they need finance to be able to aggregate the trade output.”
Anna Nambooze, the Country Director for the Uganda –South Sudan program at Trademark Africa (TMA) said through the project, they will be creating grain hubs which will be used to facilitate grain trade and facilitate consolidation and capacity building for farmers and traders to ensure post -harvest is done right.
