Brazzaville, Congo
As the African Development Bank Group holds its 2026 Annual Meetings in Brazzaville, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is urging the institution to rethink how it finances agriculture, arguing that the key issue is not the size of funding, but who benefits from it and whether the underlying model is sound. AFSA says recent research shows the Bank has channelled billions of dollars into industrial agriculture, while support for farmer-led and diversified food systems remains limited.
The debate comes as delegates gather at the Kintélé Conference Centre under the theme “Mobilising Africa’s Development Financing at Scale.” AFSA is using the forum to press for a shift toward agroecology, stronger land rights and greater transparency in agricultural lending.
AFSA said two recent studies on the Bank’s agricultural financing between 2019 and 2025, together with an analysis of the 40 Dakar 2 “Feed Africa” country compacts, show a strong tilt toward value chains, agro-industrial zones and large agribusiness projects. It said these investments have expanded the Bank’s influence in African agriculture, but have not sufficiently supported the smallholder systems that feed most of the continent.
A third study by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape goes further, challenging the assumption that Africa has vast “unused” land available for large-scale farming. According to AFSA, the research finds that much of the land often described as idle is already used for grazing, gathering, shifting cultivation and other ecological functions, and is governed by customary claims.
AFSA also said smallholders manage about 80 percent of Africa’s farmland and provide up to 80 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s food, making them central to the continent’s food security.
The group said both sovereign lending and private-sector financing from the Bank have focused heavily on fertilisers, hybrid seeds, mechanisation, irrigation and industrial processing. It argued that this model leaves little room for agroecological transformation and reinforces dependence on external inputs.
It also warned that many projects labelled as climate finance still reproduce the same high-input agricultural model. AFSA said nearly half of agricultural approvals are classified as climate finance, but none of the 20 projects assessed reached high agroecological alignment. It said flagship programmes such as TAAT and agro-industrial processing zones scored the lowest.
The organisation further raised concerns about transparency and participation, saying lending through banks and funds makes public money difficult to track and that communities often face consultation without real influence. It also said the Dakar 2 compacts involve more than 11 million smallholders in industrial schemes that may limit their control over land, crops and pricing.
AFSA said it is not calling for the Bank to stop investing in agriculture, but to recalibrate its approach. The group urged the AfDB to establish an agroecology transition window within Feed Africa, require ecological performance indicators for all agriculture projects, strengthen transparency and community participation, and protect local food markets and farmer-led seed systems.
Million Belay Ali, AFSA’s general coordinator, said African farmers are not asking the Bank to stop investing, but to direct finance toward the systems that already feed the continent. He said the current model overwhelmingly supports industrial agriculture while branding high-input monocultures as climate-smart.
AFSA said the Bank has both the mandate and the capacity to lead a just transition in agriculture, and called on its governors and management to support financing that strengthens local markets, farmer-managed seeds, soil regeneration and diversified production systems. The group said the choice before the Bank is not whether to invest, but which model of African agriculture it chooses to back.
