By Aggie Konde
Africa has doubled farmers’ incomes, lifted cereal yields by about 40 per cent, and nearly doubled farm output in real terms since 2005, but a new AGRA review released today concludes these gains have not yet added up to transformation. The AGRA Impact, Learning and Foresight Report 2026, launched in during the commencement of the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) 2026 in Kigali, Rwanda, earlier today, now calls for a renewed alliance across governments, farmers, businesses, finance, researchers and development partners to turn two decades of progress into lasting farmer prosperity, an agenda that faces its first major test at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) in Kigali from 2 to 5 September.
https://www.digital.zenithbank.com/ZEQ/ZEQ-jan-2026/index.html#p=1Speaking during the release of the report, AGRA’s board chair H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn has empasised on the need to strengthen food systems in Africa to help farmers grow. “Progress becomes transformation only when productivity is restored, value is retained and capability is sustained. The question for the next decade is not only what Africa can produce, but whether the systems around farmers allow them to prosper,” H.E. Hailemariam said.
On her end, AGRA’s president Alice Ruhweza has stated that renewed collaborations among actors anchored on farmer prosperity, science, local knowledge and agriculture as an investable asset. “Twenty years of evidence show that Africa’s agrifood sector can move when the conditions are right. The task now is to turn that progress into income, resilience, dignity and opportunity for farmers. That will require a renewed alliance that brings governments, farmers, businesses, finance, researchers and development partners around a shared agenda for farmer prosperity,” Alice has said.
The report is, in AGRA’s own words, an honest account of two decades of work. It documents where AGRA and its partners helped catalyse progress, where gains remained limited or fragile, and what must change next. It presents AGRA throughout as one contributor within a much wider network of governments, farmers, researchers, businesses, financiers and development partners, not as the author of Africa’s agricultural story.
A substantial, but incomplete, record
The wider evidence base presented in the report is substantial. Agriculture’s contribution to economic growth, measured as Gross Value Added, rose from about 2.3 percent to almost 4 percent. Local seed industries have taken root, and more than 25,000 agro-dealers and 33,000 community extensionists now connect farmers to inputs, knowledge and advisory services that barely existed two decades ago.
Yet the report is direct about where progress has fallen short. Yields remain below the levels Africa needs, farmer incomes remain lower than global averages, hunger has risen and productivity gaps persist. Many farmers still cannot convert higher production into dependable income, and other actors across agrifood value chains, along with the institutions meant to support them, are not yet flourishing at the scale required. On its current trajectory, the report by AGRA warns, Africa will not deliver the Kampala Declaration or CAADP 3.0 targets for 2035; doing more of the same at greater scale will not close that gap, only an integrated agenda and sustained delivery will.
From the Maputo agenda to farmer prosperity
The report situates this moment in a longer arc. The famines and crop failures of the 1980s exposed the fragility of Africa’s food systems; the turning point came with the 2003 Maputo Declaration and the first Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, which established a shared, African Union-led agenda for transformation. AGRA’s role since 2006 has been to support and accelerate that continental ambition alongside governments and partners, not to substitute for it.
Three traps holding back transformation
The report attributes the shortfall to three connected constraints: a productivity trap that limits reliable, resilient production; a value trap that prevents output from consistently becoming income, jobs, processing and trade; and a capability trap that weakens the institutions, finance, data and accountability needed to sustain delivery.
Closing these gaps will require three priorities to move together: reliable and resilient production; stronger links from production to markets, processing, trade and jobs; and lasting institutional capability backed by adequate finance and data. Progress in only one will count for little if the other two lag behind.
A wider economic alliance
Because farmer outcomes are shaped by decisions across finance, trade, water, energy, infrastructure, health, education, climate, science and industry, the report argues that responsibility for transformation can no longer rest with agricultural institutions alone.
It calls on governments, investors, researchers, businesses, financiers, civil society, media and development partners to move beyond isolated projects and invest in integrated systems, warning that when farmers cannot produce reliably, food prices rise, import bills grow and young people lose confidence in the rural economy, while farmer prosperity builds stronger markets, healthier communities and more inclusive growth.
AGRA’s contribution over twenty years
Within this wider effort, AGRA and its partners say they have supported 118 seed companies and more than 650 improved seed varieties, built networks of over 25,000 agro-dealers and 33,000 community extensionists, trained five million farmers in soil health and climate-smart practices, and worked alongside nearly 800 scientists, while helping leverage approximately USD 691 million for national agricultural investment plans.
“These are contributions within a much wider journey,” the report states, “not a claim of sole credit for Africa’s progress.”
Looking ahead to Kigali
The assessment has been commission as part of AGRA@20 and draws on independent evaluations, outcome assessments and published research, alongside consultations with governments, funders, researchers and private-sector actors, supplemented by AGRA’s own monitoring data. Its findings have been carried forward to AFSF in Kigali and its conclusion is that production and yield growth, while necessary, will not be sufficient unless governments and partners connect productivity, value creation and institutional capability around one shared measure of success: the prosperity of farmers.
The full report is available on the AGRA Impact, Learning and Foresight Report 2026 page at agra.org/foresight-report-2026 and via www.agra.org.
