AGRA was founded in 2006 because Africa was struggling to transform the livelihoods of its farmers and rural communities, and to ignite wider socio-economic transformation. There was a need for an African institution to channel mostly philanthropic resources to address lingering gaps to build capabilities in critical parts of the food system, spanning communities, markets, research and government and therefore empower smallholder farmers. The goal was to increase farm productivity and double farm household incomes.

In the initial ten years up to 2016, there were four complementary programmatic areas. These were identified on an assessment of the biggest binding constraints African agriculture transformation faced in the 2000s.

The first was the Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) that supported the development of Africa’s seed sector almost from scratch. Up until the 1980s the seed sector was government dominanted. The government produced most seeds available for farmers. After liberalization in the 1990s some large global multinational firms entered the market, largely importing seed. The African seed industry was almost non-existent and public functions were not meeting the needs of farmers and not geared toward research and market-friendlyconditions. AGRA’s seed program therefore built a scientific backbone by training 500 MSc and PhD graduates and 152 technicians in plant breeding and crop improvement disciplines. It supported fledgling African agricultural research institutes to develop and release 700 improved crop varieties across 18 crops. And it set out to significantly accelerate the private sector backbone of the sector by supporting 110 nascent African seed companies in 13 countries through catalytic funding, trainings and technical and business support, as well as 25,000 agro-dealers to strengthen the then weak agro-input distribution system. By 2016, commercial improved seed production by these African seed companies increased from 3,000 metric tonnes of seed in 2006 to 240,000 metric tonnes annually.

A second program was on soil health to deepen the African cadre of soil scientists and agronomists, to start to embed integrated soil fertility management practices, to improve fertilizer use efficiency, and to deepen last-mile extension services connected to the agro-dealer network.

A third program was on strengthening post-harvest management and market linkages. Efforts focused on establishing and strengthening aggregation systems for smallholder farmers, improving post-harvest handling practices, developing storage facilities and market infrastructure, exploring warehouse receipt systems and starting to link smallholder farmers to structured commercial markets and buyers.

The fourth area was a Policy and Inclusive Finance Program that set out to to improve the enabling environment by training various agricultural economists at MSc and PhD levels, supporting the evidence-based formulation of policies in line with a liberalized approach (following the government dominated approach that was dominant until the 1980s), and supporting the deepening of inclusive agricultural finance and investment frameworks.

While these programs had some benefits, they did not move the needle toward doubling farmer incomes and ensure farmers and rural communities prosper. A green revolution and food systems transformation, including through environmental sustainability, did not and has not happened yet as the programs were scattered in the various countries making it difficult to measure impact. In the 10 years after 2016, AGRA sought to continually learn from why these gaps remain through a constant refining of its strategy.  Between 2017 and 2022 it introduced the consortia model whereby consortia of actors with different services and goods at sub-national level or at enabler sector level (e.g. seed sector) were brought together under one programmatic framework to provide a bundled solution. AGRA also started to work more with partners funded through other sources and with capabilities AGRA did not have.

After 2023, a further level of integration started to take place, with a stronger focus on market systems approaches and government capability approaches.

On the market systems side, the bigger focus has been on:

1. Placing market-shaping private sector much more at the centre of the programmatic design;
2. Distinguishing pioneering inclusive firms (anchor firms) – whose business model is one that provides a vested interest to empower smallholder farmers – from speculative, rent-capturing firms;
3. focusing on end-to-end value chain development with a recognition that binding and major constraints may sit outside of AGRA’s area of specialization and partners are key for this;
4. accelerating soil health, water management, nutrition, gender intentionality and youth intentionality solutions;
5. value chain diversification to understand which value chains have biggest scope to transform the economy at a national level.

On the government capability side, there has been a bigger focus on

1. political economy dynamics
2. intra-ministerial coordination around the needs of smallholder farmers, anchor firms and priority transformative value chains
3. an integrated government approach to ensure all our government interventions are synchronized
4. a stronger approach to institutional capacity strengthening

This effort is ongoing and as AGRA heads to its 20 year anniversary this August, as a learning organization it is undertaking a further learning review to inform what AGRA’s role should be in the next 10 years in order to build on these lessons and to play the role it was set up to play, thereby accelerating Africa’s trajectory toward food systems transformation.

By Jonathan Said– Vice President, Centre of Technical Expertise , AGRA, and Rufaro Madakadze, Lead – Capacity Building & Technical Support- CESSA.