AgriReview West Africa

Agriculture is central to Africa’s economy, contributing 20% to GDP and employing over 60% of the workforce. However, agricultural production is projected to decline by 18% due to land degradation and climate change, even as food supply needs to triple by 2050 to meet the demands of a rapidly growing global population.

At COP16 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in December 2024, global leaders stressed the urgent need to accelerate the restoration of degraded lands by 2030, highlighting the severe impacts of land degradation and climate change that threaten food security and livelihoods for millions worldwide. According to the UNCCD’s latest report, the world loses the equivalent of over 100 football pitches of fertile land every minute, amounting to nearly 370,000 hectares annually. Driven by unsustainable agricultural practices, this threatens to cut crop productivity by half in some regions by 2050 and increase Africa’s dependence on food imports.

However, the continent is far from helpless. Africa’s untapped potential, from closing the agricultural “yield gap” (typical crop yields are less than 25% of what they could be) to boosting local industries, presents a unique opportunity to drive economic diversification and create millions of skilled jobs. Unlocking this potential requires bold, collective action from governments, researchers and the private sector.

Africa still relies on agriculture and the export of raw commodities for economic growth, accounting for less than 1% of global manufacturing. Yet, multiple sectors across Africa have the potential to be onshored and expanded within the continent. For example, at the 2024 Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit, member states identified local domestic manufacturing and blending of fertilizers as a key industry to capitalize on the continent’s resources and reduce reliance on global markets.

These changes can build local supply chains, reduce reliance on imports and enhance domestic industries, positioning Africa as a global leader in sustainable food production. With Africa’s food economy projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030, food processing holds immense potential to drive local economic growth. In countries like Niger and Nigeria, it already accounts for half of all manufacturing jobs, illustrating its critical role in creating employment while meeting the increasing demand for diverse and high-quality food products.

Key drivers for these changes include the World Economic Forum’s Food Innovation Hubs Global Initiative, which seeks to scale innovative solutions for food systems transformation through hubs including one in Kenya. These hubs bring together diverse stakeholders – from entrepreneurs and investors to farmer organizations and policy-makers – to drive innovations that can be localized and implemented across African agricultural systems.

By creating value networks that connect local stakeholders with global innovations, we will create more resilient agricultural systems that can better withstand challenges such as climate change.

At the moment, humanity consumes 1.7 times the resources that the planet can renew in a year, creating an ecological debt that will continue to increase as a result of population and economic growth. Circular economy models provide a powerful solution by maximizing the lifespan of products, ensuring materials are reused and waste is minimized. By closing the loop of resource use – from design to disposal – these models not only help reduce ecological debt, but also drive sustainability, fostering environmental restoration and bolstering economic resilience.

In the agricultural sector, these models can turn agricultural waste into valuable resources, such as biochar (a form of charcoal made by burning biomass), which improves soil fertility, enhances water retention and sequesters carbon for centuries. Initiatives like biochar not only contribute to soil health and increase agricultural productivity, but also help to provide an additional income stream for farmers, making farming systems more resilient. Similarly, the cocoa industry generates around 700,000 tons of waste annually, which is largely discarded, leading to environmental damage like soil degradation and deforestation. By utilizing cocoa byproducts and wastes, farmers can also produce biochar or animal feed sources.

This circular model not only benefits farmers, but also helps to mitigate the impact of land degradation, offering a sustainable solution to both food security and climate change while supporting economic resilience across the continent.

Africa’s agricultural sector faces significant financial challenges, with an estimated $200 billion annual funding gap. Despite the immense growth potential, agriculture receives less than 3% of global development funding. Public funds alone are insufficient to drive the transformation needed. Innovative financial mechanisms that bridge public and private interests are necessary to unlock resources and accelerate the adoption of sustainable farming practices. Risk-sharing models and blended finance mechanisms are essential for de-risking investments and making the sector more attractive to both domestic and international investors.

The AgriFinance Platform, sponsored by OCP (the world’s leading plant nutrition company, headquartered in Morocco) and IFC, and launched at the 2023 World Bank Group and IMF Annual Meetings in Morocco, aims to bolster sustainable food production and distribution in Africa. By mobilizing $800 million in blended capital by 2030, the platform targets strengthening 30 agricultural value chains across Africa through 60 agri-finance operations. Beyond financing, it fosters the development of new partnership models and innovative agricultural approaches.

By integrating funding with innovation, capacity-building, and sustainable practices, the platform aims to drive Africa’s agricultural transformation, creating jobs, developing skills and enhancing food security across the continent. The incubator body of the AgriFinance Platform, INNOVX, focuses on creating and scaling innovative technological businesses with strong environmental and social impacts.

In addition to supporting beneficiaries, such de-risking initiatives can stimulate larger investments, and infrastructure development, such as improvements to energy, transport, and communication networks. These advances can significantly reduce operational costs for farmers and agribusinesses, enabling greater market access and improving resilience in rural areas, supporting the broader agricultural ecosystem.

Smallholder farmers, women, and youth form the backbone of Africa’s food security but often face systemic barriers. Women significantly contribute to food production, accounting for 50% globally and up to 80% in rural areas of Africa. Yet, they face a disproportionately higher risk of severe food insecurity, with a likelihood nearly 27% greater than that of men. In addition, policies often overlook actionable gender goals, with only 19% of agricultural frameworks addressing gender equality or women’s rights as clear policy objectives.

Addressing these inequalities requires collaborative partnerships involving governments, civil society and the private sector to improve access to resources and modern agricultural technologies, while fostering training and capacity-building programmes that challenge restrictive norms and scale up localized interventions.

An essential starting point for effectively supporting small-scale farmers, women and youth is equipping them with sustainable agricultural practices. Tailoring nutrient applications to the specific needs of crops, soils and local conditions ensures that crops receive the right nutrients at the right time.

In Ethiopia, a fertilizer formulated by OCP has increased yields of teff by 113% and maize by 37%. Furthermore, customized fertilization is up to 40% cheaper for farmers since they do not pay for nutrients that their soils and crops do not need. Critically, by fostering healthy soils, effective nutrient management enables soils to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air, a key means of combating climate change.

Embedding customized agricultural practices into capacity-building programmes equips small-scale farmers, women and youth with the tools to achieve higher productivity and yields, maintain fertile lands, and drive sustainable, equitable agricultural growth.

For example, initiatives like OCP’s “School Lab” bring mobile labs to small-scale farmers in remote areas, offering free live soil analysis and fertilizer recommendations using X-rays, big data and machine learning, as well as interactive training sessions, live demos, and videos on sustainable agricultural practices. In 2023, the initiative covered over 36 million kilometers, reaching 1,557 villages. Since its inception, OCP has supported more than 970,000 farmers across 10 countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo.

Reimagining partnerships in Africa’s agricultural and food systems is critical to securing sustainable growth and addressing the global food security crisis. By fostering local value networks, promoting circular economy models, introducing risk-sharing financial strategies and empowering vulnerable groups, we can elevate Africa’s agricultural sector into a powerful driver of global food resilience. At the heart of this transformation is the need for farmer-centric strategies that prioritize women, small-scale farmers and youth, ensuring they are not only included but empowered to lead the charge in shaping a future of sustainable agricultural development.

By forging innovative partnerships, Africa can address these challenges, build resilient agricultural systems and chart a path towards sustainable growth that benefits both the continent and the world.