An appeal for African policies leveraging Artificial Intelligence and data collection to reposition indigenous food systems, revitalize the agricultural sector and reduce dependence on imports.

Africa’s immense development potential remains trapped in narratives that reinforce economic stagnation and food insecurity. Foreign aid fuels a damaging paradox that paints Africa as a poor region, ignoring its wealth and warping perceptions. Africa’s untapped agricultural potential demonstrates this stark reality.

The continent’s agribusiness market potential is projected to hit over USD 1 trillion by 2030 (AfDB, 2018). Africa has over 30,000 edible plant species of which 7,000 were traditionally cultivated or foraged for food (Mabhaudhi, 2024) underscoring the paradox of a food crop treasure trove being dependent on imports: With an estimated 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, Africa remains a net importer of food (WEF, 2016). The continent’s annual food import bill of USD 50 billion is projected to skyrocket to over USD 110 billion in 2025 (World Bank, 2023). An estimated 280 million people on the continent remain undernourished and food insecure (FAO, 2022) demonstrating the systemic inefficiencies in foreign aid, charitable interventions and African government policies.

The Challenge of Dominance and Narratives

The continent’s agricultural and food security challenges stem from historical patterns that activated foreign aid and “White savior” narratives like those that were pushed by Band Aid (UNICEF, 2023). The Berlin Conference of 1884/85 formalized Africa’s economic subjugation,which evolved into today’s aid systems that perpetuate colonial extraction, trapping Africa in dependency (Hickel, 2021).   

Western media coverage of Africa overwhelmingly focuses on conflict, disease and humanitarian crises rather than success stories. An estimated 65% of Africa-related news in the West between 2015 and 2021 focused on crisis narratives, while only 20% highlighted economic progress (Frank & Ribet, 2022). Western media coverage of foreign aid tends to portray African countries as passive recipients and voiceless victims overshadowing stories of local innovation and entrepreneurship (Nothias, 2020). Africa’s challenges in agriculture and food security are partly due to the cycle of dependency and paternalism sustained by a donor driven agenda (Brookings, 2017).

External actors’ dominance in Africa is based on colonial extractive infrastructure as opposed to driving transformation and development on the continent. Agricultural production and policies on the continent are geared towards cash crop exports, neglecting the untapped food systems on the continent (FAO, 2022). The European Union and the USA subsidize their farmers heavily, and analysis of data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicates that the influx of cheap agricultural products undercuts African farmers (OECD, 2023). In addition, market dynamics in Africa are distorted by dependency on aid rather than aiming for sustainable agricultural growth (UNDP, 2023). African farmers remain largely ignored and uncompetitive, have no access to capital and suffer from poor infrastructure and a lack of technology due to policies and international trade agreements that favor developed nations (WTO, 2022).

Africa’s agricultural sector receives less than 3% of global development funding, with public aid overshadowing private initiatives (World Bank, 2022). Most countries are battling the erroneous perception by African urban consumers who view indigenous crops as “poor people’s food” limiting demand (FAO and FARA 2024) as they remain largely overlooked by formal markets and agricultural policies. Informal markets are the primary outlets for indigenous crops in Africa. Such crops include Teff (Eragrostis tef) grain originating in Ethiopia, Fonio (Digitaria exilis) grain in West Africa, Bambara Groundnut (Vigna subterranea) legume widely cultivated across sub-Saharan Africa, African Yam Bean (Sphenostylis stenocarpa) legume, Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) pseudo-cereal and Marama Bean (Tylosema esculentum) legume native to arid regions of Southern Africa.

The Future of Africa’s Agriculture

The future of Africa’s agriculture will depend heavily on investments to create new mental models – new narratives to activate and mainstream regional markets and institutions, the continent’s orphan crops, indigenous knowledge, entrepreneurship and innovation. The agricultural sector must deliberately and proactively engage the continent’s youth through quality skilling and education and strategic uptake of digital technology and artificial intelligence.

New Mental Models: Shifting perceptions through education, media framing and policies could unlock the potential of untapped food crop varieties that are largely forgotten and activate dormant arable agricultural land. New mental models are required to sift through the conflicting public perceptions shaped by media and policy to enable intelligent borrowing of ideas and strategies to effectively increase agricultural productivity through financing and transformation. This can be achieved through reviewed school curricula, research, by aligning local cuisines and recipes to the continent’s urbanization trends as well as by taking advantage of the growing market for health and wellness food in Africa. Positive narratives that promote consumption of traditional indigenous food crop varieties could save the continent an estimated USD 20 billion annually by reducing food imports (Brookings, 2023).

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI – strategically, judicially and ethically utilized – can reverse colonial biases by prioritizing data on African indigenous food crop varieties to inform both public policies and farmer and business strategies. The continent can leverage lessons learnt from The Plant Village Food Recognition Assistance and Nudging Insights (IFPRI, 2024) to increase consumption of indigenous foods in schools. The project designed a smartphone-app to help users identify the foods they were eating. By simply taking a picture of their meal, users can access a wealth of information about the nutritional content, caloric value, and potential health benefits of their food. Digital technology and AI can be used to interconnect and coordinate food crop diversity hotspots such as those in Ethiopia (FA0, 2019), West Africa (Bioversity International, 2020) and Southern Africa (Frontiers 2024) to leverage their benefits at continental level, leading to investments that increase food security.

Mitigating Risk Perception: Risk perception deters private investment inflows to Africa whilst aid based public funds prioritize short term relief over long term transformation (IMF, 2022). The era of digitalization and AI offers a unique opportunity for Africa to collect and analyse data that can be published as part of a strategy of correcting erroneous perceptions of risk on the continent. Availability of data on production and consumption of indigenous foods will catalyse financial inclusion, market access and investments towards agro processing of such foods.

Building Trust is Key to Africa’s Agricultural Future: Ancient African trade routes and investments were anchored in trust that had for centuries played a critical role in promoting intra-African trade and the growth of chiefdoms and empires on the continent. The onset of the Atlantic slave trade, which reached an unprecedented scale,  disrupted the once thriving trade and market systems and planted deep-seated distrust across Africa, further exacerbated by colonial structures such as arbitrary borders. Africa must make efforts to rebuild its trust to enable regional market growth. This can be done by joint development of standards, regional exchanges, and research collaboration.

Campaign for Review of Global Market Architecture: The continent must initiate robust campaigns for a review of global market and financial architecture to ensure accuracy in economic data, denominate debt in African currencies and open local financing opportunities for agriculture. The denomination of debt in non-African currencies exposes the continent to exchange rate fluctuations leading to high debt risks. As a result of biased credit rating systems, the continent loses an estimated $74.5 billion per year (UNDP, 2023), an amount almost equivalent to that used to import food to Africa.

Key Next Steps

1. Reshape Narratives: The continent’s leadership academies must prioritize inculcating new mental models and reshaping narratives on traditional and indigenous African food systems within a clear framework on promotion of endogenous public policies. To unlock its USD 1 trillion agribusiness market potential, Africa must make deliberate efforts to repurpose current mental models that are heavily influenced by the colonial legacy and a perception of Western superiority in agriculture, and to invest in data driven decision making. Africa must set up research agencies to create the necessary situational awareness of narratives that deprive Africans of possibilities to exploit their potential in full.

2. AI and Market Intelligence: It is imperative for African governments to launch an AI Food Security Fund targeting at least 15 indigenous crops for market revival. The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) should prioritize robust systems for collecting, analyzing and deploying agricultural and food data as a tool to demystify risk perception, enhancing productivity, improving market access and fostering innovations. This calls for collaboration and partnerships with mobile phone service providers, satellite and remote sensing organizations, and experts in geospatial analysis.

This can be based on the recently launched Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy (AU, 2024). Establishing regional data hubs for sharing anonymized datasets by governments, private sector and researchers is crucial. Data driven decision making will enable African farmers to address the dynamics of food preferences in urban populations and at the same time utilize intelligent methods to increase productivity.

3. Quality Education: Africa is set to make up 37.9% of the world’s population by 2100. The continent’s youthful population is projected to overtake Asia by 2085, which currently accounts for 60.8% of the global workforce (Mo Ibrahim, 2023). To tap into this vital demographic trend, African countries must review school curricula that emphasize theoretical knowledge over practical market relevant skills. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, only 14.2% of tertiary graduates have a background in science and engineering (UNESCO, 2022).

In rural areas where agricultural activities dominate, schools lack the necessary laboratories and workshops relevant to agriculture. Curriculum modernization becomes the key to harnessing the continent’s youthful population into a force for transformation in the agricultural sector. Africa must invest in quality education and articulate clear awareness of the negative impact of colonial legacies and competing global narratives on food security and productivity. 

4. Tackle Corruption: The high food import bill is driven by factors such as corruption where African elites prefer to get kickbacks from imports as opposed to tapping into sources from local producers. The underutilization of Africa’s indigenous crop varieties is informed by sophisticated corruption where donor countries impose policies that favor their own interests over those of Africa, for instance by giving preference to corporate entities. Tackling corruption can address the challenge of low productivity due to underinvestment where African governments spend less than 5% of public budgets on agriculture (AU, 2023) but are in favor of imports.

Conclusion

To secure Africa’s agricultural future, African countries must take proactive steps to sift through the clutter of competing narratives and to intelligently borrow strategies such as success models in land management, value chain development and investments in research and development from international partners. A deliberate effort to position quality education as a tool to activate the continent’s agricultural potential and to use the AfCFTA momentum to push for AI for neglected African crops will activate investments into this vital sector.

By James Shikwati

Founder and Director, Inter Region Economic Network (IREN Kenya)

Reprinted with permission from "Welternaehrung", the expert journal of the INGO Welthungerhilfe (WHH), April 2025.

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