Southern Africa is a major market for SA’s agricultural growth prospects. Of the $13.7bn of SA’s agricultural exports in 2024, about 44% was to the African continent. About 90c of every dollar from exports to the rest of the continent was earned from Southern Africa. This is partly why SA must always seek to resolve any challenges diplomatically and promote stability in this region.
Over the past few years, we have seen some instances of trade friction in Southern Africa involving SA and its neighbouring countries. A case in point is restrictions on vegetable imports into Botswana (now lifted) and Namibia (still in place). The latest issue is with Tanzania, which temporarily restricted SA’s agricultural imports. The ban was swiftly lifted at the weekend.
The common factor in all these import restrictions is that neighbouring countries say they want to boost domestic production. Another issue is some incorrectly suggesting that their slow penetration into the SA agriculture and food market is due to restrictions.
On the latter there often are inaccurate statements about the openness of SA’s agricultural market, which is relatively open, and all of these countries are part of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Free Trade Area. The slow penetration is either because there has not been a formal request for market access, as in the case of Tanzania’s bananas, or because some of their products are not competitive in SA.
It is understandable that our neighbouring countries seek greater market access to SA. While a net exporter, SA was a major regional agricultural importer of $7.6bn in products in 2024, up 8% year on year, according to data from Trade Map. The uptick resulted from a slightly higher value and volume of the major products SA imports, such as wheat, palm oil, rice, poultry and whiskies.
However, for the neighbouring countries to participate meaningfully in the SA market they will need to continuously study SA’s import list closely and target particular value chains, not the ones SA already excels in, in which it imports the least. This is mainly what the likes of Tanzania should primarily target in their attempt to increase regional agricultural trade.
Regarding various countries’ efforts to boost their domestic agricultural production, it remains true that SA could provide some necessary technology and know-how. Various SA agribusinesses and commodity associations, such as the Citrus Growers Association, have expanded their operations and membership across the Southern African region to boost regional agricultural production.
The goal should be for the area to collectively improve its agricultural output, strengthen various value chains and export to the world while firming intraregional trade. However, regional stability and co-operation are vital for such processes to take off. This means minimising the trade frictions we often encounter, such as the examples we highlight. The only justifiable trade restriction in the region should be when there are animal diseases, and trade suspensions are used temporarily to contain their spread. We typically see this with outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle and African swine fever in pigs.
Aside from such cases, the region’s approach should encourage co-operation. This should not only be at a private sector level but also be a message embraced by policymakers across the region to strengthen regional agricultural value chains. In this environment of trade friction and heightened geoeconomic tensions, firming up relations at regional levels is crucial, and agriculture must be a starting point.
Written for and first published in the Business Day.
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