frica’s growing demand for food has been met increasingly by imports from the global market. This, coupled with rising global food prices, brings ever-mounting food import bills. In addition, population growth and changing demand patterns will double demands over the next 10 years. Clearly, business as usual with food staples is not sustainable. But there is a solution—and it comes from within Africa. Through regional trade, Africa’s farmers have the potential to meet much of the rising demand, while providing substitutes for more expensive imports from the global market. This potential, however, has yet to be exploited because African farmers face more trade barriers in accessing the inputs they need, and more trade constraints in getting their food to consumers in African cities, than do suppliers from the rest of the world. Thus, African farmers now provide only five percent of Africa’s imports of cereals.