| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Africa farmers, traders and consumers care less about continental ambitions, and instead, care more about whether the road is passable, the rules enable the food to move, the standards are clear, and a buyer is waiting at the other end of the border.
That was the message from the webinar, Operationalizing the AfCFTA Agri-Trade Action Plan through Regional Food Corridors, hosted by AGRA on 4 August 2026. Representatives from AGRA, the AfCFTA Secretariat, TradeMark Africa and the World Food Programme (WFP) explored how Africa can move from trade agreements to the monumental and decisive work of moving food.
The current statistics make for some stark reading. Figures presented during the webinar showed that only about 15% of Africa’s trade takes place within the continent. Africa also carries a trade deficit of roughly $80-billion per year, while food imports remain a major drain on scarce foreign exchange. What is ostensibly a trade problem quickly translates into a food-security, jobs and resilience problem.
Agriculture supports about 226 million jobs across Africa. Yet many of the people who produce, process and trade food, particularly women, young people and small businesses, remain at the margins. Women account for an estimated 70% of informal traders, but often face poor access to finance and inputs, as well as harassment and delays at borders.
Corridors must connect food markets across the continent
The AfCFTA Agri-Trade Action Plan seeks to change this by concentrating effort where trade can grow fastest. It prioritises nine value chains: maize, rice, soybeans, fruit and vegetables, palm oil, meat, fish, cashew and cotton. These were selected for their potential to expand trade, improve food security, attract investment, support processing and build regional value chains.
Four broad zones were identified as promising food corridors: North Africa; Dakar to Lagos; Lobito to the Upper Rift; and the Limpopo River corridor. Together, they cover an estimated 80% of Africa’s population, 85% of the opportunity to replace food imports with African production and at least 60% of its agricultural production potential.
But a corridor is not just a road, railway or port. It is an economic system of goods and services connected by infrastructure. It needs warehouses, cold rooms, electricity, laboratories, finance, market information, efficient customs and rules that traders can trust. It must link surplus-producing areas to deficit markets, and connect farmers not only to consumers, but also to millers, processors, retailers and exporters.
The webinar’s reference to the cotton example captured the essence of the problem. Africa exports large volumes of raw cotton, then imports much of the yarn and fabric it consumes. The continent produces the raw material but surrenders the better-paying stages of the value chain. Regional spinning and textile hubs could retain more value, create jobs and connect producers in West Africa with manufacturers and markets elsewhere on the continent.
WFP offers a glimpse of what is possible
The World Food Programme (WFP) experience showed that corridors are already moving food at scale. The WFP operates along 74 corridors worldwide, 54 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and distributed 2.3 million tonnes of food in 2025. Between 2023 and 2025, it procured about one million tonnes locally and regionally in sub-Saharan Africa.
Buying closer to where food is needed can shorten supply chains and give producers a more dependable market. WFP described how advance purchasing, storage, common quality standards and corridor-wide information systems can align procurement with harvest seasons and reduce delays. Infrastructure matters, but coordination makes it useful.
Implementation is the real litmus test
There are some early emerging initiatives that provide an illustration of what implementation of trade corridors looks like. Zimbabwe is developing a one-million-tonne strategic grain reserve, with the first 225,600-tonne phase under way. TradeMark Africa is supporting a fisheries programme across nine countries, focused partly on women and young people. Regional agro-parks are also being developed around maize, cocoa and the Great Lakes agro-industrial corridor.
These are useful programmes that showcase a rollout of the trade expansion in the continent. But the AfCFTA Action Plan has a short implementation window, and Africa has produced enough strategies that are not adequately implemented.
The next phase must therefore be practical: identify the biggest obstacles along each corridor, assign responsibility, finance viable projects and measure whether food is moving faster, more cheaply and with less waste. Countries must turn the continental plan into fundable national projects, while regional bodies align standards, customs procedures and infrastructure.
The success of Africa’s food corridors will be judged by whether a farmer finds a dependable buyer, a truck crosses a border without losing days, a processor can secure raw materials, and food reaches consumers at a fair price. Africa already has the farms, markets and entrepreneurs. The task now is to make these connections work.