ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the prospects for agricultural trade among the countries of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, COMESA.1 The regional grouping began in 1981, with the purpose of achieving ‘a Common Market by the year 2000 in order to allow the free movement of goods, capital and labour within the region’ (PTA 1992: xii). By 1995 it included virtually every Eastern and Southern African country, plus several Indian Ocean states.2 As Lipton has argued persuasively, the goals of food security and regional integration should not be confused (Lipton 1988); nor should trade integration be considered the principal component of a development strategy, either for the sub-region or individual countries. But increased agricultural trade in itself would bring important benefits to the sub-region, as is increasingly recognised by bilateral and multilateral donors. Sub-regional trade need not be defended on the basis of increasing food security or redesigning development strategy, though it may facilitate these goals.
