Africa’s agricultural trade is picking up speed, but it’s facing opportunities and challenges. The 2024 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor (AATM), created by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and AKADEMIYA2063, digs into these issues and explores what is driving trade patterns across the continent.
This year’s report spotlights how trade and climate change are connected, showing how they are shaping Africa’s future together.
Agricultural trade in Africa plays a crucial role in shaping food security, affecting food availability, access, utilization, and stability across the continent. This extends not only to the trade of agricultural outputs, such as crops and livestock but also to essential inputs like fertilizers.
Africa relies heavily on imports for these inputs, and recent global disruptions, such as rising fertilizer prices and supply shortages, have hit small-scale farmers particularly hard. These farmers, who already face numerous challenges, are feeling the squeeze as prices soar and supplies dwindle.
Despite these setbacks, Africa’s agricultural trade has shown significant growth. Between 2018 and 2022, Africa enjoyed the third fastest growth in agricultural exports, trailing only the Americas and Asia.
During the same period, the continent also recorded the second-fastest growth in agricultural imports, following Asia. On the export side, Africa plays a substantial role in global markets for key commodities like cotton, cocoa, coffee, tea, and tobacco. On the import side, essential goods like cereals, sugar, sugar confectionery, and fats and oils dominate the landscape.
Below are the top 10 countries Africa imports agricultural goods from:
