Entry into the market by foreign producers and marketers has affected trade and production sectors in poor nations.

Many people opt to buy Chinese products because they are cheap regardless of quality.

Allan Nswilla, a public engagement manager with Hakikazi Catalyst, a non-governmental organisation based in Arusha, Tanzanian calls for training on entrepreneurship skills for small scale businesses and farmers for African products to be competitive.

“It’s poverty that makes people opt for cheaper products that are substandard,” Nswilla said at the World Social Forum. “We need to equip our people with skills that will enable them produce goods that can compete in a free market.”

Without such skills the presence of multinational companies will continue to kill agricultural and textile industries and small-scale businesses in poor nations will suffer greatly.

Supporting Nswilla’s sentiments Ms Mariam Kamara from Guinea noted that increased presence of Chinese companies in Africa was killing African food production methods.

“They have large capital and sell their products at very low prices, “ Kamara said. “This has led to many women being thrown out of business because they are not able to compete.”

These sentiments were expressed during the session “Alternative Development Agenda for Gender, Food Production, Agriculture and Trade”.

Kamara lamented that the African farming system has been invaded with mechanised farming which has contributed greatly to food insecurity.

In countries such as Ghana trade liberalisation policies have forced women out of the textile industry.

“Importation of bulky cheap textile products from China and other countries has completely eliminated locally-produced goods from the market due to high cost of production,” said Ms Kathleen Boheene from Ghana.

As this style of trade is embraced, Africans are shunning goods from their country. “Africans must be proud of what they produce instead of embracing imported products,” said Ms Nana Rando from Ghana.

“You see when I return home from the United States I am asked if I have carried brown rice. How can I carry brown rice all the way from the US when the same crop is grown in Northern Ghana!”

“We must be taken to change such mentality,” said Boheene. “Africans must be warned that buying cheap imported products haws a negative influence on their own local traders and industries.”

And the civil society has a role to play in this, Boheene said. “Civil society has the obligation of lobbying to let African governments realise the repercussions of their political decisions.”

Graciella Rodriguez from Brazil lamented that it was wrong to brand poor nations as producers of exported goods for rich countries.

“Creating food exporting countries is not good. In Brazil we produce Soya but we do not eat it because all that is produced is for export,” Rodriguez said. “It’s regrettable that the decision on what should be produced for export is done by multinational companies who don’t involve the producing countries in their decisions.”

For there to be food sovereignty and security, primary agricultural production should target the population and export should be secondary.