Also known as: AGRA · AGRA programmes · AGRA West Africa
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa — agricultural transformation and food systems organization that monitors food security and advocates for farmer-centered development across Africa.
AGRA West Africa’s acting Regional Director and Senior Program Officer for Inclusive Markets, Trade and Finance, Sunil Dahiya, says food systems progress should be measured not only by their productivity but also by their ability to deliver healthier diets. …
… These questions define AGRA’s call for a Renewed Alliance: a practical compact aligning public, private, research, farmer and development institutions around measurable prosperity outcomes. …
… In May 2026, Ecobank Group and AGRA announced a partnership aimed at improving access to finance for agribusinesses, farmer organisations and other actors across agricultural value chains, including through tailored financial products, risk-sharing mechanisms and blended finance. …
The average price of white maize in Ghana increased by 8.9 per cent in August to GH¢3,141 per metric tonne (MT), the latest Food Security Monitor report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has revealed. …
… Grateful to AGRA for creating opportunities like this and for giving young Africans a platform to contribute to conversations on transforming our food systems,” she said. …
… Former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, who is also chair of the AGRA Board, said Africa’s experience has demonstrated that agricultural transformation is possible when governments coordinate institutions and focus on empowering farmers. …
… Dumelo expressed appreciation to AGRA, a key partner of the AFSF, for creating opportunities for leaders from across the world to deliberate on Africa’s food systems. …
The Norwegian government is supporting a €3 million initiative called the Making Agrifood Markets Accessible (MAMA) programme to strengthen Ghana's soybean value chain and improve market access for smallholder farmers. The three-year programme, implemented by IDH, AGRA, IITA and YARA, targets 10,000 smallholder farmers with 60 per cent being women, and aims to create 20,750 jobs while partnering with six SMEs.
The Norwegian government is supporting a €3 million initiative called the Making Agrifood Markets Accessible (MAMA) programme to strengthen Ghana's soybean value chain and improve market access for smallholder farmers. The three-year programme, implemented by IDH, AGRA, IITA and YARA, targets 10,000 smallholder farmers with 60 per cent being women, and aims to create 20,750 jobs while partnering with six SMEs.
AGRA's regional director told the Micronutrient Forum's 7th Global Conference in Accra that food systems progress should be measured by their ability to deliver nutritious diets, not productivity alone. He noted that climate change is reducing both harvests and nutrient density in crops, pushing households toward cheaper staples and increasing hidden hunger and micronutrient deficiencies.
An analysis argues that Africa possesses substantial knowledge for building prosperity, but the institutional challenge is enabling governments, businesses, research institutions, and communities to access and connect that knowledge across sectors to translate it into coordinated decisions and measurable improvements in people's lives.
Agribusiness professional Gladys Sampson says agribusinesses must invest across the entire agricultural value chain, not concentrate resources on land, production, and machinery alone, to achieve sustainable growth and broader objectives.
The average price of white maize in Ghana increased 8.9 per cent in August to GH¢3,141 per metric tonne, according to AGRA's Food Security Monitor. Despite the monthly rise, prices remain 8.9 per cent lower than six months earlier and 36.3 per cent below a year ago, suggesting overall supply conditions remain more favourable than they were a year earlier.
AGRA's Food Security Monitor report says food prices in Ghana remained largely stable in August 2026 compared to July, with rice and sorghum prices unchanged while white maize prices increased 8.9% month-on-month. Year-on-year, rice and white maize prices are significantly lower than a year earlier, reflecting improved supply conditions.
At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Rwanda, 24-year-old Ghanaian entrepreneur Fareeda Mustapha asked President Paul Kagame what governments must do to make agricultural and food systems a major engine of job creation for Africa's youth. Kagame called for policies that support young people and improve access to agricultural financing, saying governments must "de-risk" support mechanisms.
Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture John Dumelo called for stronger regional collaboration among West African governments, the private sector, and farmers to build a self-sufficient rice industry. Despite the region's production potential, West Africa spends more than US$3.5 billion annually importing rice, though countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Sierra Leone have begun working together on the rice value chain.
African leaders at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali say the continent has made significant progress in transforming food systems but needs decisive investments to build a more sustainable agrifood sector. They emphasize the need for governments to take greater ownership of food systems agendas through effective coordination and delivery mechanisms.
Ghana's Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture John Dumelo has called for a borderless Africa to facilitate the movement of agricultural produce and strengthen intra-African trade, noting that African countries have different agricultural strengths and resources. He acknowledged that bottlenecks including visa restrictions, tariffs, and inadequate infrastructure hinder current trade, and urged the expansion of existing trade corridors to create a more integrated African market.
An AGRA Impact, Learning and Foresight Report shows Africa has made significant progress strengthening its agrifood systems over two decades, with agriculture gross value-added growth rising from 2.3% to almost 4%, farm output doubling, farmer incomes doubling, and cereal yields increasing by about 40%; however, the report calls for greater alliance-building among governments, farmers, businesses, financiers and researchers to ensure production gains translate into income, dignity, resilience and opportunity for farmers.
AGRA's new Impact, Learning and Foresight Report argues that Africa's food systems must be judged by what farmers earn, while noting that significant progress has been made in strengthening agrifood systems over two decades but more transformation work is needed on the continent.
Young people make up roughly 38% of Ghana's population and Ghana needs to create about 300,000 new jobs annually to meet demand. Skills gaps, limited capital access, weak market linkages and high borrowing costs prevent many young Ghanaians from converting entrepreneurial ideas into viable businesses.
Ghana's youth comprise roughly 38% of its population and the country needs to create about 300,000 new jobs yearly, but young people face barriers including skills gaps, limited access to affordable capital, and weak market linkages that prevent them from turning ideas into viable businesses.
International Youth Day highlights young Africans' shared aspirations for decent work and sustainable futures amid high unemployment. The continent's youngest-in-the-world population—more than 60 per cent under 25 in sub-Saharan Africa—faces an urgent need for job creation, with the food system being considered as a potential source of employment.
Africa has the world's youngest population, with more than 60 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans under 25, but faces an urgent employment challenge to absorb millions of young people entering the labour market. The food system is presented as a potential source of jobs and opportunities for youth seeking decent work and sustainable futures.
Shipping disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz raised urea prices sharply, doubling fertiliser costs in African markets where food already consumes about half of household spending. The article argues that Africa's reliance on imported fertilisers—the third major supply shock in five years—reflects structural dependence rather than a single crisis, and that existing technologies and institutions on the continent could reduce this vulnerability.
Africa's next economic frontier will be built by transforming accumulated knowledge into institutions that enable enterprise and create shared prosperity, rather than by discovering new resources. The challenge is no longer discovering what works, but converting that knowledge into institutions capable of attracting investment and enabling enterprise.
A National Youth Dialogue on Ghana's domestication of the Africa Agribusiness Youth Strategy and Youth in Agrifood Systems Performance Index concluded in Accra, with youth calling for greater investment in food systems programmes and pressing the government to move beyond mentioning youth in agricultural policy to creating funded, measured, and accountable commitments across flagship programmes including the Feed Ghana Programme and National Agricultural Investment Program.
The World Food Prize Foundation President Mashal Husain awarded AGRA the Norman E. Borlaug Medallion at an event in Nairobi, Kenya, recognising the organisation's two decades of advancing agricultural transformation and strengthening food systems for smallholder farmers across Africa.
African nations have strong policies for agricultural transformation and food systems, but struggle to implement them effectively. The gap between policy ambition and farmer-level delivery—marked by delayed input supplies, weak extension services, and poor system coordination—reflects execution failures rather than lack of vision.
An investigative analysis argues that over five million Ghanaian smallholder farmers are being harmed by macroeconomic policies and institutional failures, including artificially cheap imported rice and maize flooding the market and defective hybrid seeds from the government's Feed Ghana Programme.
Ecobank Group and AGRA announced a strategic partnership to strengthen Africa's agricultural ecosystem through improved access to finance for agribusinesses, farmer organisations, and value chain actors. The partnership will use blended finance and tailored financial products to support agribusiness SMEs, smallholder farmers, and women and youth-led enterprises.
Stakeholders in Ghana's food systems sector say evidence-based data is crucial to strengthening climate adaptation and resilience. AGRA's Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool (ClimVAT), developed following a climate assessment exercise conducted between 2024 and 2025, combines climate, soil, and socio-economic data to generate spatial maps of climate exposure, agricultural sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to support climate-resilient agricultural planning and investment decisions.
The Skoll World Forum highlights that Africa's ambitious food policy frameworks often fail to translate into results at scale due to weak implementation capacity and coordination gaps across ministries and system actors, despite strong political declarations like the Kampala Declaration.
AGRA's Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Food and Agriculture (YEFFA) programme trains young people to own and operate agricultural machinery while providing mechanised services to local farmers, addressing youth unemployment and improving farming productivity in rural communities.