The East Africa Exchange (EAX), the commodity market platform based in Rwanda, to expand its operations in the region to Tanzania and Uganda following its entry into Kenya early this year.

EAX’s country director Joshua Rugema, told Rwanda Today that, the company was in discussions with the relevant authorities in Uganda and Tanzania to operate certified commodity warehouses in the countries through green field investments in 2017. The company has been exploring markets in Tanzania and working with Yara Tanzania as a certified trader.

Both EAX and recently launched G-Soko seek to promote farming through development of an organised agricultural commodities market that protects farmers from exploitation from middlemen who take advantage of the producers lack of adequate storage to offer low farm-gate prices.

READ: G-soko trading platform sells cereals worth Rwf243m

“Farmers need to aggregate, store well, and dry produce so that the quality rises and can be taken up by the agro-processors and sold in the high end market within the region,” said Jean Claude Kayisinga, permanent secretary in Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources while commenting on EAX and G-Soko’splans.

The East African Grain Council (EAGC) has already set-up a country office in Rwanda to spearhead G-Soko. According to Diana Ngaira, the Knowledge Expert at Food Trade East & Southern Africa, EAGC will first have discussions with the government to ensure the certification of warehouses conforms to regulations that are currently under development.

Experts and other players in the food trade sector say warehouses benefits include; drop in post-harvest losses; increased uptake of produce from small holder farmer groups; and access to proper storage solutions for small holder farmers.

While the same cereal market services are being offered by the East African Exchange Ngaira does not see G-Soko’s deployment to be in competition with EAX platform.

“G-Soko complements the commodity exchange framework by promoting the production of surplus that meet quantity and quality requirements for trade across the region,” she said.