Thanks Mercy. Good to know.

Hi Edgar.
We do guided by the international trade classification system (particularly HS-code). Your suggestion is something we could explore going forward.

Thanks Susan.
In addition, given the diverse weather patterns and staggered harvesting periods even countries that produce the same commodities, opportunities for trade exist in an intra-temporal sense.

Two main messages (among many others!) have been:
(1) Esp. in Eastern Africa, with its diverse ‘food baskets’—e.g., teff in Ethiopia, maize in Kenya, plantain in Ugand—that food needs to move, and to move better, especially across national border.

(2) These findings give compelling evidence in support of the elimination of non-tariff barriers within the East African Community Customs Union.

Hi Polly. Broadly, we think understanding the opportunities and challenges of increasing trade in livestock through these largely ‘informal’ routes would be interesting. These would be linked to the issues of trans boundary disease spread etc. Are there policy interventions required at the regional level to address these challenges and/or make optimal use of opportunities for trade?

Thanks. On the question of trade in feeds see my response to the comment by Mats.
Thanks for the invitation to do the analysis on the livestock exports to Europe…our basic understanding is that exports to Europe require very stringent sanitary standards. The costs of meeting these standards might be economically sensible given the big and growing unexploited regional market. But we would be happy to hear more ideas on this issue.

Hi Isabelle. Our analysis has been at a slightly broader level where we have tried to establish the link between increased trade (of course as a result of many things including tariff reduction etc) and the welfare outcomes at the household level (child nutrition status, wealth status).
The currently we are assessing the household level impacts of a specific project meant to increase capacity of households/farmer groups participate in regional trade in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Hi Imma. Indeed your observation is correct and our analysis also controls for other factors that influence welfare.