Crops

Digital power meets African agriculture

AfDB's investments drive sustainable farming, improve productivity, and strengthen food security in Africa

The World Bank Group has joined the Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy (MADE) Alliance: Africa as a co-chair, supporting the initiative’s mission to deliver digital access to essential services for 100 million individuals and businesses across Africa by 2034

The Bank will serve alongside current co-chairs and founding members — the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard — combining efforts to expand the reach of critical digital solutions across the continent.

The MADE Alliance is prioritising opportunities in agriculture, recognising the sector’s potential for digital technologies to accelerate development. World Bank-supported “Digital Agriculture Roadmaps” will unite stakeholders in crafting tailored action plans for specific countries, enabling the alliance to reach more farmers with impactful solutions.

“The World Bank Group is deeply committed to expanding inclusive digital access across Africa and connecting farmers to the digital tools they need to reach markets, access finance, and grow their businesses. Joining the MADE Alliance will help accelerate both of these goals, driving economic growth and improving livelihoods across the continent,” said Sangbu Kim, vice-president for Digital at the World Bank. “By bringing together our digital and agriculture expertise, global knowledge, and local experience, we can help scale lasting, transformational impact.”

The World Bank Group formally joined the MADE Alliance in late April during the alliance’s Steering Committee meeting, held alongside the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C.

“Two of the African Development Bank Group’s priority areas are to Feed Africa and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa. The MADE Alliance: Africa brings us closer to achieving those goals by connecting the continent’s smallholder farmers to digital services that lead to greater food production, greater access to markets, financing and farming practices, as well as to increased incomes,” said Dr Beth Dunford, vice-president for Agriculture, Human and Social Development at the African Development Bank, which has committed US$300mn to the alliance’s first five years of programming. “The World Bank’s demonstrated expertise in the digital connectivity and agriculture sectors enables the MADE Alliance: Africa to reach more farmers eager to be part of Africa’s agricultural transformation.”

“The MADE Alliance brings complementary partners together to execute and implement programs that target the same regions and communities, allowing us to amplify our impact,” said Tara Nathan, founder and executive vice-president of community pass, Mastercard. “The World Bank brings enormous expertise in digital transformation and agriculture, and we are honored they have joined the alliance to deploy resources more efficiently and accelerate our work to help bring everyone into the digital economy.”

FG to establish livestock breeding centres

The initiative is expected to boost local production.

The Federal Government has announced plans to establish livestock breeding centres across all six geopolitical zones of the country, as part of a broader strategy to enhance productivity and sustainability in Nigeria’s agriculture sector.

Aliyu Abdullahi, minister of state for agriculture and food security, disclosed during a two-day interactive session on government-citizen engagement organised by the Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation in Kaduna.

Speaking during a plenary on agriculture and food security, Abdullahi said the Tinubu administration is deliberately investing in the livestock sector as part of its Renewed Hope Agenda. “The initiative aims to equip the next generation with modern agricultural skills, technology-driven

knowledge, and innovative farming practices to strengthen national food security,” the minister said.

He also emphasized the importance of collaboration among government ministries to fully implement the administration’s goals, highlighting efforts to modernise agricultural education.

According to Abdullahi, the ministry is partnering with the federal ministry of education to redesign the school curriculum in order to foster youth engagement in agriculture and encourage the adoption of modern practices. “Synergy among the ministries of agriculture, environment, water resources, livestock development, and the marine and blue economy is critical to achieving the broad objectives of the Renewed Hope Agenda,” he added.

The initiative is expected to boost local production, reduce dependence on imports, and create opportunities for young Nigerians in the agricultural value chain.

South Africa convenes high-level indaba to tackle Fmd outbreaks

Indaba presents a vital opportunity to unite expertise and resources to effectively eradicate this devastating disease.

South Africa is currently experiencing significant and ongoing challenges with widespread outbreaks of Foot and Mouth disease (FMD), affecting several provinces, including KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and, most recently, the Free State.

The resurgence of the disease has resulted in livestock movement restrictions and significantly impacted the country's red meat trade on international markets. In response to this escalating crisis, the department of agriculture, in partnership with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the University of Pretoria, and Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), is hosting a national Foot and Mouth Disease Indaba.

The two-day event, starting Monday, 21 July 2025, took place at the ARC-VIMP Campus in Roodeplaat, northeast of Pretoria. John Steenhuisen, agriculture minister and Nokuzola Capa, deputy minister will lead the Indaba, which aims to bring together top veterinary scientists, agricultural experts, and key industry stakeholders, to deliberate on and develop long-term solutions to combat FMD. "Having already inflicted significant damage to the multibillion-rand livestock sector, the disease continues to threaten South Africa's broader economy. Therefore, the Indaba presents a vital opportunity to unite expertise and resources to effectively eradicate this devastating disease.

"The Indaba will convene a range of multidisciplinary specialists to develop a coordinated and comprehensive approach to controlling and ultimately eradicating foot and mouth disease," the department said in a statement.

The key areas of discussion was strengthening biosecurity measures at farm level, enhancing vaccination programmes, and reinforcing animal movement controls.

The Department of agriculture, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Council, emphasised its committed to identifying and implementing sustainable solutions to FMD.

The department added that the Indaba signifies a crucial advancement in the ongoing efforts to combat the disease."By cultivating strong partnerships between government entities, academic institutions and industry leaders, the Department of Agriculture is committed to developing precise and effective measures that will eradicate the disease and safeguard the long-term sustainability of South Africa's agricultural sector."

Ethiopia’s integrated agro-industrial parks development

They provide specialized infrastructure such as cold storage.

In Ethiopia, UNIDO is supporting the development of four Integrated Agro- Industrial Parks (IAIPs).

An agro-industrial park is an agribusiness development corridor integrating value chain actors with high-quality infrastructure, utilities, logistics, and specialized facilities and services to create economies of scale for sustainable market-driven agribusiness development and rural transformation.

The primary objective of agro-parks is to create investment opportunities in agribusiness. The IAIPs in Ethiopia also aim to promote the value addition of agricultural production through processing, manufacturing and storage of food, feed, and biofuel products; drive technological change; and spur industrialization of the agribusiness sector by offering premises and supporting services that connect value chain enterprises.

The IAIPs combine infrastructure needs, such as roads, power, water, sewage and telecommunications, with features to support agrifood processing, for example, open production zones, controlled environment growing areas, precision farming, research facilities, rural hubs, agri-infrastructure, collection centres, primary processing hubs and agri-marketing infrastructure.

They also provide specialized infrastructure such as cold storage, quarantine facilities, quality control labs, certification centres and central processing units. The IAIPs are supported by a network of rural transformation centres in a 100-km radius, which function as hubs for agricultural processing, sorting, grading and other pre-processing activities, credit and finance services, input supply, and market information provision, thus further assisting producers and linking them to markets.

There are currently three operational IAIPs, with 114 investors committed to the initiative. To date, 25 factories are under establishment, and out of which nine agro-processing investments are fully operational. These efforts have generated over USD 48.1 million in export revenue and created 2 297 factory-level jobs. Smallholder farmers have been increasingly linked to the IAIPs as suppliers, with 131 605 farmers engaged in 2022, 103 800 in 2023, and 39 992 in Q2 of 2024.

The Ethiopian Government is encouraging investment through various incentives, such as low land prices, incometax exemptions, duty-free imports for capital goods, and financial support from domestic institutions.

These interventions not only increase income for farmers, but also generate employment in non-farm occupations as demand for goods and services rises (Yeboah and Flynn, 2021). Special attention to the role of women and youth in the agricultural sector is essential for improved employment outcomes and broader structural transformation (Yeboah and Flynn, 2021). With the proliferation of agro-processing practices, tertiary education and the service sector will play crucial roles, creating decent job opportunities and greater income. The international acceptance of these public and private services is inevitable to maintain the competitiveness of the agrifood sector.

A study conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tunisia in 2022 showed that while employment in agrifood processing accounted for only 5 percent of total employment in the food economy, the ability of the food processing sector to generate employment opportunities as a percentage of its growth was high, which therefore presents significant opportunities for employment and income generation (Kubik et al., 2022).

By transforming raw agricultural products into higher-value goods, farmers and local businesses can capture more of the final market price. For instance, processing tomatoes into paste or turning milk into cheese significantly increases the income of producers (Begimkulov and Darr, 2023). This approach not only boosts the financial returns for farmers, but also creates diverse employment opportunities in rural areas, ranging from low-skilled labour to high-skilled technical and managerial positions.

Brazil, the country that has experienced the most rapid mechanization progress in Latin America, accelerated its transformation through price interventions that removed anti-agricultural biases, leading to increased investment in agrifood processing. The region’s focus on enhancing agricultural productivity resulted in higher incomes for farmers and the creation of numerous jobs in the food processing sector, contributing to broader economic development and poverty reduction (Daum, 2022).

New opportunities have emerged to increase participation of agrifood SMEs in food processing across Africa (Nakitto et al., 2024). Many of these opportunities are in domestic and regional markets as processors respond to growing demand (Nakitto et al., 2024). In Senegal, for example, demand for ready-to-eat millet has increased processing of millet (Badiane et al., 2022).

Urgent global action needed to end hunger, says FAO in SOFI 2025 report

As 2.6 bn people still cannot afford a healthy diet, this year’s report also explores food inflation.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for faster, more inclusive global action to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

Speaking at the launch of the 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General stressed the need for urgent and united efforts to address the uneven progress being made.

This year’s SOFI report was presented for the first time in Africa, at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—a fitting choice as Africa continues to suffer the most from food insecurity.

The 2025 report shows a small global improvement, with hunger rates dropping slightly from 8.5% in 2023 to 8.2% in 2024. However, this progress hides major regional differences. Hunger is decreasing in Asia and Latin America but worsening in Africa, where 307 million people—about 20% of the population—are food insecure. It’s predicted that by 2030, Africa will make up nearly 60% of the global population facing chronic hunger.

“Recovery must be inclusive - we cannot accept a future where entire regions are left behind,” said Qu.

The launch event was attended by high-level figures including Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General, Taye Atske-Selassie, Ethiopia’s President, and Edmondo Cirielli, Italy’s Deputy Foreign Minister. Mohammed said: “Knowledge is power. Today’s launch of the SOFI report delivers sobering insights and the power to act,” adding that conflict must give way to cooperation to fix fragile food systems.

The Ethiopian President called the report “a compelling call for action,” saying it provides guidance for both short-term fixes and long-term solutions. Italy’s Cirielli stressed that food security is central not only to diet, but to the well-being of economies, societies, and global health.

The SOFI 2025 report—produced jointly by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO—paints a troubling picture. Since 2020, 90 million more people face hunger, and 100 mn more than in 2015. In 2024, 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure.

Malnutrition trends are mixed. While child stunting has decreased slightly, wasting has not improved. Anaemia among women aged 15–49 has risen from 27.6% to 30.7%, and adult obesity increased from 12.1% in 2012 to 15.8% in 2022—highlighting the “double burden” of malnutrition.

New indicators in the 2025 report show poor diet diversity: only one-third of young children and two-thirds of women meet the minimum standards. “Much more must be done to expand access to nutritious, diverse diets for all - especially women and children,” Qu said.

As 2.6 bn people still cannot afford a healthy diet, this year’s report also explores food inflation. Since 2020, food prices have risen faster than general inflation, further revealing weaknesses in the food system.

“In the face of global disruptions, protectionist or inward-looking policies are counterproductive. What we need is coordinated global action—based on shared responsibility, solidarity, and sound evidence,” Qu said.

The FAO calls for “urgency, inclusiveness, and action” to ensure everyone, everywhere, has access to nutritious food. “Let us act now—not just with ambition, but with determination—to achieve Zero Hunger, leaving no one behind.”

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