Brazil sent an important delegation to the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF 2026), held in Kigali, Rwanda, from August 31 to September 4. For the first time, the country had such a significant and numerous presence at the Forum. This invites some reflection and allows us to draw a few conclusions.

As one of the world’s largest food exporters and a global leader in technologies for tropical agriculture, Brazil is naturally a highly sought-after partner for African countries seeking to expand agricultural production and strengthen food security, on a continent whose population is expected to reach around 2.5 billion by 2050.

Brazil, however, has a complex network of actors within its agricultural production ecosystem. For African audiences — particularly in government and universities, but also in civil society — understanding the role played by each of these actors is important if productive partnerships are to be designed with sound premises and, above all, clear objectives.

The AFSF seeks to bring together a wide range of actors, with particular emphasis on the private sector and on companies with the capacity and willingness to invest in strengthening food systems across the African continent. It also brings together governments, academia and civil society, predominantly from Africa. AFSF 2026 was no exception.

In contrast, besides two delegates from civil society, the Brazilian delegation consisted essentially of government representatives, among them was the President of EMBRAPA - the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation - the country’s leading agricultural research institution and a key contributor to the technological transformation that helped make Brazil a tropical agricultural powerhouse from the 1970s onwards.

The contrast was therefore not simply one of composition, but also of perspective. The Forum naturally placed considerable emphasis on investment, markets, innovation and the capacity of the private sector to transform food systems. The Brazilian delegation came with a somewhat different emphasis: the role of public institutions and policies in creating the conditions under which markets, private investment, family farming,

research and social policies can work together towards broader food-security objectives.

Brazil organised three side events. They attracted, however, relatively small audiences. The question must therefore be asked: why? What explains this limited participation — the content presented, the time scheduled for the events, the way they were communicated — or, perhaps, a mismatch between the nature of the Forum and what Brazil was seeking to bring to the debate?

Part of the answer may lie precisely in the tensions that run through contemporary food systems: between the public and private sectors; between agriculture geared towards international markets and agriculture primarily aimed at supplying domestic needs; between the imperative to generate foreign exchange through exports and the equally urgent responsibility to ensure affordable food for local populations; and, ultimately, between what markets can deliver on their own and what requires the sustained engagement of the State through coherent and consistent public policies.

Around two decades ago, Brazil began to address this complex equation more explicitly through public policy. The country needed to produce on a large scale, conquer markets, generate trade surpluses and build up reserves. But it also needed to feed its own population and, above all, overcome hunger — an objective it achieved again in 2025, when Brazil left the FAO Hunger Map for the second time.

This result did not stem exclusively from the expansion of agricultural production or the strength of agribusiness. It was also, to a large extent, the result of public policies on food and nutrition security, support for family farming, public food procurement, school feeding programmes and social protection mechanisms.

Brazil subsequently developed an institutional structure that reflects this duality. The country has two ministries directly responsible for agriculture, with different mandates and constituencies: the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA), with a strong role in agricultural value chains, commercial agriculture and the international integration of Brazilian production; and the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA), particularly focused on family farming, small-scale producers, agrarian reform and rural development policies. Other institutions also contribute to shaping Brazil’s broader food and agricultural agenda.

This structure recognises that agriculture in a continental country such as Brazil does not follow a single logic. There is, simultaneously, an agriculture deeply integrated into international markets and generating foreign exchange, and another whose economic and social role is particularly linked to domestic food supply, rural household incomes, territorial development and food security.

This duality is particularly relevant when considering African food systems. Brazil’s experience suggests that the expansion of commercial agriculture and export-oriented production need not come at the expense of family farming or food production for domestic markets. These are not necessarily competing models, but different dimensions of the same agricultural system that can — and, in many circumstances, should — be articulated through appropriate public policies and institutional arrangements.

Such articulation does not happen spontaneously. It requires public policies capable of setting priorities, correcting imbalances, building infrastructure, financing production, encouraging innovation, expanding access to markets and ensuring that increased productivity and exports also translate into economic and social development.

This is perhaps one of the main lessons of Brazil’s experience: the State does not have to choose between large-scale production and family farming, or between exports and food security. Its role is to recognise this complex equation and create the conditions for different interests to coexist and, as far as possible, reinforce one another. The capacity of the State to act with autonomy is therefore essential to balancing public and private interests, international integration and domestic supply, and foreign-exchange generation and food security.

The point is not to offer a Brazilian model to be replicated. Rather, it is to demonstrate that these tensions can be managed through public institutions, engagement with the private sector and civil society, differentiated policies and national development choices.

Brazil’s participation in events such as the AFSF therefore serves a clear purpose: to deepen cooperation with African countries. It also builds on the Second Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, the Fight against Hunger and Rural Development, held in Brasília from 19 to 23 May 2025, and contributes to stronger engagement around the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.

Through these partnerships, Brazil has sought to share experiences that bring together sustainable increases in production, agricultural research and innovation, stronger family farming, access to water, public food procurement, school feeding, social protection and income generation, while recognising that solutions must be adapted to the priorities and strategies defined by each country.

Scientific and technical cooperation is another important pillar of Brazil’s growing engagement with Africa. Brazil has accumulated considerable experience in tropical agricultural research, soil recovery and management, production in tropical and semiarid regions, bioinputs, resilient production systems and adapting agriculture to climate change.

Brazil’s presence at AFSF 2026 showed, above all, that there is room to make the full breadth of this experience better known in Africa. Brazil is internationally recognised for the scale and competitiveness of its agriculture. Less familiar, however, is the institutional and policy architecture that has developed alongside it: the coexistence of export-oriented agriculture and family farming; public policies for food and nutrition security; and the role of the State in supporting research, innovation, infrastructure and access to markets.

This broader perspective may not always fit naturally into a debate centred primarily on investment, markets and private-sector solutions. That is precisely why it deserves to be brought more deliberately into Brazil-Africa dialogue. Brazil does not bring to Africa a choice between the State and the market. It brings an experience — with its successes, contradictions and limitations — of how both can operate within a broader national strategy for agricultural development and food security.

At future editions of the AFSF, Brazil will continue to bring this experience and its willingness to build partnerships, particularly in the fields of public policy and scientific and technical cooperation. The expectation is that this less familiar dimension of the Brazilian experience will gain increasing space in Brazil’s dialogue with Africa.

The author is the Ambassador of Brazil to Rwanda