Across Africa, 2025 was a year of heightened activity in competition law enforcement in the Agri sector, particularly in sectors tied to food security and essential goods. Competition authorities increased scrutiny of pricing practices and potential coordination in key agricultural input markets. Rising food inflation and ongoing supply‑chain pressures drove a more interventionist approach, with authorities expecting agribusinesses to maintain pricing transparency, exercise caution in distributor communications, and carefully manage trade association engagements.
Competition authorities increasingly broadened their focus from individual pricing practices to comprehensive assessments of entire agrifood value chains. In South Africa, the Competition Commission (SACC) deepened its focus on structural and pricing dynamics within key agricultural and food markets.
In October 2025, the SACC launched its Poultry Market Inquiry analysing the full value chain from production to retail, signalling growing attention to market concentration and barriers to entry in an industry dominated by a handful of vertically integrated producers. Although large, established firms may emphasize their role in supporting smaller farmers and maintaining supply chains during times of crises and disruptions, the inquiry may identify structural barriers that could hinder large-scale entry for independent producers and conduct that could reinforce such barriers.
The final report on the Fresh Produce Market Inquiry, which examined practices across farmers, retailers, landlords, and municipalities, proposed reforms to address inefficiencies, high input costs and market dominance by major retailers in a value chain critical to food affordability.
The SACC continued monitoring essential food prices and cost drivers and in its Essential Food Pricing Monitoring Report noted some positive trends in retail restraint and narrowing spreads between producer and retail prices for staples like bread and pilchards, even as maize meal costs remained under pressure due to climatic challenges.
Market Inquiries and market monitoring activities were pragmatically balanced with sectoral support. The sugar industry saw regulatory intervention through exemptions under the Sugar Master Plan, allowing sugar cane producers, sugar processors, and downstream users to collectively determine producer price restraints, including coordination on the pricing methodology to be adopted in determining prices increases of sugar products and the timing of increases. The exemption explicitly excludes fixing end-consumer prices, market allocation, or collusive tendering for goods and services intended for sale to end consumers. These measures seek to stabilise the sugar sector and support local employment and procurement, while preserving competition safeguards.
Beyond South Africa, similar themes emerged across the continent.
In Kenya, the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) published its findings from an animal feeds market inquiry, highlighting anticompetitive practices and stressing the need for sector participants to align internal and external arrangements to prevent such conduct. The CAK is expected to enhance monitoring of the animal feed sector, including more targeted investigations, closer collaboration with regional regulators, and interventions where anticompetitive practices occur.
Notably, the CAK and the East African Community Competition Authority issued a notice confirming its intention to conduct a joint inquiry into the fertilizer sector in Kenya, as well as all other East African Community Member States, including Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In Zambia, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is conducting a commercial poultry market inquiry to examine market structure, outcomes, and arrangements that may restrict, prevent, or distort competition to the detriment of consumers.
In Egypt, the Egyptian Competition Authority referred 162 broiler‑chicken producers and the General Union of Poultry Producers to public prosecutors for alleged price‑fixing and unlawful information exchange involving daily broiler rates and sensitive cost, production, and feed data. All related agreements were suspended, and further exchange of commercially sensitive information was prohibited.
In Namibia, the Namibian Competition Commission concluded a consent agreement with Goal Maize CC over an exclusive distribution arrangement in Northern Namibia, requiring cessation of the conduct, implementation of a compliance programme, and payment of a fine as part of a settlement.
In 2026, the developments and trends discussed above point to a landscape of stronger compliance expectations and transparency in relation to aspects such as distributor agreements, pricing policies, rebates, information exchanges through associations and cooperatives and data flows and closer scrutiny of structural barriers, retail buyer power, and supply chain resilience. Market inquiries and exemptions are likely to remain key tools, complemented by enforcement against collusion and restrictive practices.
As economic pressures and climate-related risks persist, competition authorities across Africa are expected to balance traditional competition objectives with broader concerns around affordability, sustainability and inclusive market participation. The heightened regulatory vigilance across Africa, emphasises the importance for agribusinesses to embed robust compliance practices while remaining attuned to nuanced regulatory interventions designed to support vulnerable sectors.
