Across Southern Africa, a region where farming feeds both families and national economies, the promise of integrated agricultural trade is being quietly undone by the very nations that pledged to uphold it. At the SADC summit of August 2026, leaders acknowledged what the data confirms: agriculture holds roughly a tenth of the region's economic weight, yet import restrictions, phytosanitary disputes wielded as political weapons, and deep productivity gaps are turning neighbors into rivals. The path forward is not isolation but the harder, more patient work of shared investment, honest diplomacy