producing countries being hit by drought simultaneously, the potential to have surplus maize to trade in the region has been cut. "Ideally we want the region to trade within itself, but the result is that the whole region will have to look elsewhere to source the commodity - something the initiative is trying to work against," says Shem Simuyemba, a Zambian trade policy specialist. Simuyemba works for the Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Support (RATES) programme, a U.S. support programme for COMESA. If a regional food reserve is to be established then Maize Without Borders is the best long term safeguard against any food deficit as the initiative would guarantee the movement of maize at any point from surplus to deficit areas, he said. "Maize Without Borders is one of the pillars of regional food security because its based on the premise of open trade," he explained in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Simuyemba adds, however, that this goes hand in hand with income security for the people in the region among other factors. This would require that regional governments take active steps to harmonize standards and de-control maize trade to allow the free-flow of the commodity, which is staple diet in eight of the member countries. But COMESA, working with regional governments, has already established a harmonized standard for maize for the whole region and is encouraging the private sector to come on board. "This has been agreed upon by all national bureau of standards. It is important to have proper standards in place to ensure that maize traded is fit for human consumption," Simuyemba says. --more 1455 Local Time 1155 GMT
