The agricultural sector in Africa faces structural problems - low productivity, insufficient research, lack of inputs, weak infrastructure, costly non-tariff measures, etc. - and exogenous shocks.

The Agriculture Trade Monitor 2021 (AATM), joint publication of Akademiya2063 and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRI), dedicates a chapter to the livestock sector and examines trade integration in the Union of the Arab Maghreb (UMA). According to the report, the measures taken to limit Covid-19, including movement restrictions and border closures, have affected the often informal agricultural trade of smallholders, an important trade in terms of income and for regional food security. In many African countries, cross-border trade by individuals was banned in 2020, while cross-border trade by trucks was slowed by health checks and curfews that led to significant waste of fresh food products.

While Africa has undeniably diversified its partners over the past ten years with an increasingly large share of emerging countries to the detriment of Europe and the United States, its participation in world exports is globally stable for the eight main sectors studied in the report. For around thirty products, the most important of which are cashew nuts, cocoa, kola, vanilla, sesame, live camels, cloves, etc., Africa dominates the world market. The successes of the continent are illustrated in recent years in cash crops, such as coffee, cocoa, cotton or tea and in niche products with cashew nuts, cola, vanilla, sesame seeds , carob, etc. But these products are overwhelmingly unprocessed, or semi-processed, such as cocoa, and they represent only a small percentage of Africa's exports.