Developing and integrating agricultural markets may be key to addressing Africa’s sustainability challenges. By modelling trade costs from farm gate to potential import markets across eight African regions, we investigate the impact of individual components of continental free trade and the complementary role of domestic agricultural development through increased market access for farmers and agricultural intensification. We find that free trade would increase intra-African agricultural trade sixfold by 2030 but—since it does not address local supply constraints—outside food imports and undernourishment would reduce only marginally. Agricultural development could almost eliminate undernourishment in Africa by 2050 at only a small cost of increased global greenhouse gas emissions. While continental free trade will be enabled in Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area, aligning this with local agricultural development policies is crucial to increase intra-African trade gains, promote food security and achieve climate objectives.

发展和整合农业市场可能是解决非洲可持续发展挑战的关键。通过对八个非洲地区从农场大门到潜在进口市场的贸易成本进行建模，我们调查了大陆自由贸易的各个组成部分的影响，以及通过增加农民市场准入和农业集约化实现国内农业发展的补充作用。我们发现，到 2030 年，自由贸易将使非洲内部的农业贸易增加六倍，但由于它没有解决当地供应限制问题，因此粮食进口和营养不良以外的问题只会略微减少。到 2050 年，农业发展几乎可以消除非洲的营养不良，而全球温室气体排放量增加的代价很小。