The Sunday News
Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE national trade development and promotion agency, ZimTrade, has called on local farmers to explore the export market for sweet potatoes, which is one of the global market’s high demand crops.
Zimbabwe’s food and flower sectors are renowned for quality in international markets such as Netherlands, which is the largest importer of the local horticultural produce. ZimTrade said among the export products with potential, sweet potatoes were one of the trending products over the past few years, offering opportunities for Zimbabwean farmers to participate in regional and international markets.
“The global market for sweet potatoes has been rapidly expanding, increasing by over 130 percent in some markets over the last five years and the European Union tops the list of growing markets. Sweet potatoes have been growing in popularity among consumers immensely within a short time, presenting viable export opportunities for Zimbabwean growers to tap into and grow the country’s exports.”
According to Trade Map, the global market value of sweet potatoes imported in 2019 was about US$706 million, representing an average annual growth of 15 percent in value between 2015 and 2019. During the same time the import volumes of sweet potatoes increased from 450 970 kilogrammes in 2015 to 844 472kg in 2019.
Last year, two largest importers of sweet potatoes, Netherlands (159 tonnes) and United Kingdom (137 tonnes) were already leading trading partners for Zimbabwe’s horticultural produce.
“This makes it easy for local farmers to increase exports of sweet potatoes, leveraging on current performing produces. By focusing on Netherlands, local farmers can tap into established routes created by the country into Europe,” said ZimTrade.
According to Netherlands’ Centre for Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) a large quantity of the sweet potatoes entering mainland Europe are traded through the Netherlands. From there sweet potatoes are distributed to countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, Finland as well as the United Kingdom.
In 2019, Netherlands was the top importer, having imported US$157 million worth of sweet potatoes, accounting for 22,5 percent of global trade. The United Kingdom imported sweet potatoes worth US$107 million while Germany was the third largest market, importing US$57 million worth of sweet potatoes in 2019.
The European Union (EU) alone accounted for 73,1 percent of the global market share in world imports of sweet potatoes in 2019, making it a good potential market for growers.
“Given the import figures in Europe, the market presents opportunities for Zimbabwean farmers who can leverage on the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (iEPA), which offers duty free and quota-free market access to the EU market,” said ZimTrade. Apart from the European market, there are also opportunities in emerging markets such as United Arab Emirates in Middle East and Asian countries such as Japan, Thailand and Singapore. According to Trade Map, Japan has recorded an increase in import value of sweet potatoes from US$16,4 million in 2015 to US$20,7 million in 2020.
During the same period, imports of sweet potatoes grew in Thailand and Singapore from US$11,6 million and US$9,5 million to US$17,4 million and US$13,7 million, respectively. ZimTrade said regional markets such as Angola and Namibia are some of the easy-to-access markets offering opportunities especially for smallholder farmers who can leverage on regional and continental trade agreements that have improved market access. – @okazunga
