Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has aimed at global trade policies that he says continue to keep African countries dependent on exporting raw agricultural produce while jobs, profits, and manufacturing opportunities are created abroad.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

Speaking during the World Food Prize Foundation DialogueNext Forum themed “Born to Feed the Future,” Kagwe criticised what he described as unfair tariff escalation practices that allow raw commodities into developed markets at low or zero duty while imposing significantly higher tariffs on processed products.

According to the CS, the system has for decades discouraged industrialisation across Africa by locking farmers into exporting cheap raw materials instead of finished products with higher value.

“It is difficult to explain to an African farmer why it is acceptable to export raw coffee but prohibitively expensive to export roasted coffee,” Kagwe said.

📌 What You Need to Know

He argued that Africa must prioritise local value addition before export in order to create jobs, strengthen rural economies and increase earnings for farmers.

Kagwe pointed to Kenya’s ban on raw in-shell macadamia exports as an example of the direction African countries should take, saying similar approaches should increasingly be adopted in the coffee and tea sectors so that processing, packaging and branding are done locally.

Kenya is globally known for producing some of the world’s best coffee and tea, yet much of it is exported in raw or semi-processed form, meaning countries abroad often earn more from roasting, packaging and branding Kenyan products than Kenya does itself.

The CS further warned that by continuing to export raw produce, African countries are effectively exporting employment opportunities that could otherwise benefit young people through manufacturing, logistics, and agricultural technology industries.

In addition, Kagwe criticised policies that tax agro-processing machinery while governments simultaneously claim to support agricultural transformation, arguing that such contradictions discourage investment in local industries.

He also called for financing models better suited to farming cycles, including affordable long-term credit, flexible repayment systems and weather-indexed insurance to protect farmers against climate-related risks.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke