Africa needs agroecology, not cosmetic transformations

When AGRA unveiled the Africa Food Systems Report 2025, it introduced the publication as a bold new road map for systemic transformation. On closer inspection, however, the report is less about transformation and more about entrenching the same model that has failed Africa for two decades — the Green Revolution model. It is a strategy built on industrialization, corporate-led agribusiness, and financialization, not on the agroecology and food sovereignty that millions of African farmers and citizens are calling for. To be fair, AGRA is right about one thing: Africa’s challenges cannot be solved in silos. Food systems are interconnected — from soil fertility and farm production to nutrition, trade, finance, and climate resilience. The report’s effort to broaden its lens beyond agriculture to food systems reflects this reality. “The challenges the AGRA report identifies are real. … But its proposed fixes miss the mark.” --— Yet, Africa’s problems are systemic and demand holistic solutions — and agroecology, with its 13 principles, as a science, practice, and movement, offers the most comprehensive approach to a systemic transformation of our food systems. Growth without nourishment, equity, or justice The statistics tell a sobering story. Agricultural output has grown at 4.3% annually since 2000 — the fastest in the world. Intra-African agricultural trade now accounts for 43% of exports. Yet 1 in 3 African children is still stunted. The number of undernourished people has climbed back above 19%. Africa’s food import bill has soared beyond $100 billion. These numbers reveal that, even when framed as progress under the industrial agriculture model, the gains have not translated into healthier people, restored soils, or nourished communities. They have bypassed equity and justice, leaving smallholder farmers — who continue to feed Africa — further marginalized. Familiar prescriptions, new packaging Now, instead of breaking with the past, the Food Systems Report doubles down on it. Its headline solutions are familiar: “sustainable intensification,” “climate-smart” agriculture, corridor-based industrialization, blended finance, and digital dashboards. Fertilizer use, irrigation, mechanization, and certified seed adoption are some of the key indicators of progress. Farmers are cast as entrepreneurs to be linked into corporate value chains. The silence on agroecology is striking. The word does appear in the Africa Food Systems Report 2025, but only in passing — mostly buried in the reference section — and never as part of the report’s core framing, analysis, or recommendations. It is absent from the headline solutions and entirely missing in the discussion of transformation pathways. Food sovereignty is erased altogether. This is not an oversight but a strategy: by ignoring agroecology, the report sidelines the growing consensus across Africa that human-centered, biodiversity-based, farmer-led food systems are the real path to food security, resilience, and justice. Challenges acknowledged, solutions misplaced The challenges the AGRA report identifies are real — policy fragmentation, underinvestment (with agriculture receiving only 1.97% of public budgets), commercial banks’ lending less than 5% to farming, climate shocks, and weak infrastructure. But its proposed fixes miss the mark. More inputs, more finance, and more corridors will not build resilience. They will deepen dependency. Blended finance may mobilize billions, but often for bankable agribusiness ventures, not smallholders. Corridors may ease logistics, but they channel farmers into commodity flows designed for export, not local food security. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa’s recent report highlights how AGRA has gained outsized influence over agricultural and food systems policymaking across Africa. Time and again, this influence has tilted policies toward industrial agriculture, despite growing evidence that such approaches exacerbate the crises of food sovereignty, climate change, and public health. AGRA’s new Food Systems Report continues along this path, extending a failed model with fresh branding. Agroecology: A proven alternative This is a great missed opportunity. At a moment when Africa urgently needs a new paradigm, our continent cannot afford another decade of chemical-intensive monocultures and corporate capture dressed up as “systems transformation.” The way forward lies in a bold, truer transformation — one that places agroecology and food sovereignty at the center of Africa’s food systems. This means: • Scaling up agroecology as Africa’s evidence-backed pathway to climate resilience and food sovereignty. Beyond increasing yields, agroecology restores ecosystems, diversifies production, and strengthens local food systems so that people, not corporations, are at the heart of farming. • Protecting farmer seed systems and biodiversity against privatization and erosion. Seeds are more than inputs; they are culture, heritage, and survival. Safeguarding farmer-managed seed systems is central to resisting corporate control and ensuring Africa’s food sovereignty. • Redirecting finance toward farmer-led innovations, local markets, and agroecological enterprises. Public and donor resources must stop propping up chemical input packages and instead support the real innovators — farmers, cooperatives, and communities building resilience from the ground up. • Centering justice by ensuring that women, youth, and Indigenous peoples are not exploited as cheap labor but are able to realize their potential as custodians and leaders of ecological change. True transformation means addressing structural inequities and recognizing the leadership of those who already sustain Africa’s food systems. This vision is not utopian — it is already alive across the continent, from cooperatives in Uganda and Senegal to farmer-managed seed systems in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Increasingly, governments are recognizing it too, with countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Senegal advancing national agroecology strategies, and counties such as Vihiga in Kenya embedding it in local policy frameworks. For AGRA, African governments, donor organizations, and the private sector, the task ahead is clear: move beyond rhetoric and embrace these four action points as the foundation for genuine transformation. Only then can Africa shift from cosmetic change to food systems that are truly resilient, just, and sovereign.