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The series of seminars of the 'Transitional Agriculture' project continues

During the first seminar series of the Transitional Agriculture project between March and April 2021, farmer organizations from Germany, Russia, Rwanda, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Malawi will deal extensively with the topic of agricultural trade, which emerged from the evaluation report (click here for more information) as one of the main topics to be addressed in 2021.

The first seminar, held on March 18, 2021, focused on agricultural trade relations between Africa, Europe and Russia. At the beginning of the seminar, agricultural trade expert Dr. Jens Schaps presented the trade structures and explained their importance, regulations and also the most important traded goods between the countries/regions.

Afterwards, in the panel discussion with the experts Dr. Majola Mabuza from the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU), Mikail Stepanov from the Russian Association of rural and farm enterprises and agricultural cooperatives (AKKOR), Stephan Schoch (DBV), Nelson Godfried (COFAG) and Dr. Jens Schaps, various questions of the participants were discussed, including "Why is there so little trade within Africa?". The experts highlighted various possible solutions such as improving established infrastructure, opening borders, unifying standards, but also better governance in African countries. On another question, "Which products should be traded more in the future?", the experts agreed that processed products in particular should be traded more and thus a large part of the value chain should take place within Africa.

The next seminar of the Transitional Agriculture project will take place on 01st April 2021 for the youth representatives of the Farmers' Organizations with a focus on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and innovation in agricultural trade such as social media, apps but also digital marketplaces.