More than 2500 delegates are attending the 12th edition of the annual Africa Green Revolution Forum, the continent’s flagship gathering on food systems, with a view to accelerating transformative innovations and commitments around the continent’s ambitions for food security. Running under the theme, ‘Grow. Nourish. Reward. Bold Actions for Resilient Food Systems’, the forum has attracted current and former Heads of State and Government, industry leaders, policymakers, development partners, entrepreneurs and innovators, farmers, climate activists, among others. With the summit taking place in the context of soaring food and fuel prices, rising cost of living, pandemic-induced hardships and the ever-worsening impacts of climate change, adding to the urgency to confront challenges that undermine Africa’s food security aspirations. The war in Ukraine has particularly exposed the fragility of Africa’s food systems, a painful reality check on a continent that has long dithered on honouring its own commitments on food security targets – both as individual states and collectively. From reneging on their commitments under the 2014 Malabo Declaration to countless white elephants to policies of lip-service without concrete actions to empower their smallholders and transform the agriculture sector, African governments have fallen short, and the continent is paying the price. Not only is the continent off-track on its commitment to end hunger by 2025, its food import bill has also tripped in recent years, to $50 billion annually, and it is expected to more than double by 2025. The overwhelming majority of smallholder farmers continue to practise subsistence farming on increasingly unproductive soils, cost of fertilizer has soared (and is lately hard to come by), extension services are in dire shortage and generally unresponsive to emerging realities, and there is a significant disconnect between policy, data and farming practices. Meanwhile, there is a need to make agriculture more sustainable and resilient to climate change impacts, yet the sector is largely viewed by financers as too risky to lend. This undermines sustainable innovations, scale and productivity and the entire supply chain efficiency. However, not all is lost. At AGRF 2022, leaders and delegates have the opportunity to chart new pathways toward concrete, data-driven interventions to fast-track strategic commitments aimed at transforming the continent’s agriculture. Among the most pressing issues that need urgent attention include the need to de-risk and attract financing to the sector, to better coordinate efforts geared at making Africa’s food systems both resilient and sustainable, improving post-harvest handling, boosting soil productivity, and involving and empowering farmers.
