By Jerome Barbaron, President of CropLife Africa Middle East
As leaders gather for the 14th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Yaoundé from 26 to 29 March 2026, one principle should guide the global agenda: trade must remain open, fair, and rules-based. For Africa in particular, strengthening open and predictable trade systems will be critical to unlocking the continent’s agricultural potential, accelerating innovation, and strengthening food security.
Open and predictable trade systems enable countries to move food from surplus regions to deficit regions, ensure that agricultural innovations are accessible across borders, and provide farmers with the technologies they need to increase productivity while improving sustainability. In a world facing growing population pressures, climate change, and supply chain disruptions, maintaining such systems is essential.
For Africa, this upcoming MC14 creates an opportunity to push for clearer disciplines on export restrictions, improved notification requirements, and faster alignment of agricultural standards measures that directly support food system resilience.
Building connected African food markets
MC14 offers Africa a platform to advocate for strengthened regional trade facilitation commitments, particularly those reducing border delays, simplifying customs procedures, and supporting harmonised SPS controls. These steps are essential to unlocking the movement of food, agricultural inputs, and technology across African markets. Africa stands on one of the greatest agricultural opportunities of our time. With nearly 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, the continent has the natural capacity to become a global engine of sustainable food production. Yet today, a large share of basic food needs is still met through imports, with over 80% of staple food imports coming from outside Africa, while intra-African agricultural trade accounts for only about 18% of total trade. This gap does not reflect a lack of potential; rather, it highlights an opportunity to better connect African markets.
The future lies in strengthening regional trade corridors, improving infrastructure, and aligning regulations so that food, technologies, and innovation can move more efficiently across borders.
Unlocking innovation access for African farmers
Africa can leverage MC14 to advocate for accelerated approval processes for climate-resilient technologies.
Across the continent, there is a growing opportunity to expand farmers’ access to innovative crop protection solutions, biopesticides, precision agriculture, digital tools, and climate-resilient seeds.
By strengthening regulatory alignment and improving policy coherence, these innovations can move more efficiently across borders and reach farmers faster. When standards are harmonised and trade systems are predictable, farmers gain access to a wider portfolio of solutions that support higher productivity, better environmental outcomes, and stronger climate resilience.
This creates a virtuous cycle: innovation enables more sustainable production, sustainable production strengthens food security, and stronger food security contributes to economic stability.
Trade as a catalyst for sustainable agricultural transformation
MC14 will also present an opportunity to strengthen global cooperation on climate‑smart agriculture, including discussions on rules-based trade that supports climate adaptation rather than create new market barriers for African producers.
Open trade enables innovation to scale: it allows agricultural technologies to move across borders, reach farmers faster, and be adopted more widely. Rules-based trade builds trust: it creates predictable systems that encourage investment, innovation, and long-term sustainability.
Science-based regulation as a foundation for trust and market growth
Global standards such as those developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission -including Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) – are essential trade enablers. As MC14 advances dialogue on science‑based rules, Africa can advocate for stronger Codex‑aligned regulatory practices, improved data‑sharing frameworks, and more predictable MRL-setting processes that reduce rejections at borders, reduce technical barriers to trade, build confidence between trading partners, enable market access, protect consumer health and support regulatory coherence.
Harmonisation is not about lowering standards, it is about aligning them around science, risk assessment, and evidence.
Building a continental food system: Africa feeding Africa
Strengthening intra-African agricultural trade is not optional, it is strategic. Through deeper integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Africa can align standards and regulations, reduce non-tariff barriers, improve regulatory coherence, build regional value chains, scale innovation regionally, increase food system resilience.
This would allow Africa to shift from import dependency to regional self-reliance, where African production feeds African markets first.
At CropLife Africa Middle East, we are actively turning these opportunities into reality. Across the region, we work with governments and partners to support efforts towards harmonisation of regulations and fast-tracking registration of innovative solutions. Through our stewardship program, we train farmers on Integrated Pest Management, Responsible Use, and Maximum Residue Levels, helping them adopt modern tools safely and effectively. Through initiatives such as the Sustainable Pesticide Management Framework in Morocco, Egypt, and Kenya, we have already reached hundreds of thousands of farmers, strengthened millions of hectares of farmland, and significantly reduced pesticide residues in key export crops. These efforts not only increase access to innovation, but also enhance food safety, competitiveness, and regional trade readiness, directly contributing to Africa’s agricultural growth and food security.
A shared vision for global food security and prosperity
At the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (WTO MC14), Africa has an opportunity to present a strong and unified message: global trade must remain open, fair, and rules-based. A predictable trading system is essential to move food to where it is most needed, accelerate agricultural innovation, expand farmers’ access to new technologies, support sustainable production, and strengthen food security.
The core challenge facing the global food system today is not globalization, it is fragmentation. Reducing non-tariff barriers, harmonizing regulatory systems, and enabling the free flow of innovation would empower farmers across Africa – and around the world – to produce more food in ways that are more sustainable and resilient.
At WTO MC14, we must choose a future where trade drives innovation, innovation equips farmers, and farmers help secure Africa’s food future.
