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The Kenyan National Fertilizer Subsidy Program (NFSP), implemented during the short rainy season in September 2022, has emerged as a pivotal policy in the government’s efforts to expand food production and mitigate soaring food prices.

As 2025 – the deadline for the Malabo Declaration commitments – approaches, African policymakers are taking stock of the region’s progress toward the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework for agriculture-led growth and development and determining what CAADP implementation will look like post-Malabo. The 2023 ReSAKSS Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) examines these questions, with a particular emphasis on the future of Africa’s food systems.

An estimated 23 percent of Nigeria’s GDP comes from agriculture, and as many as 70 percent of the nation’s labor force engages in the agricultural sector. At the same time, approximately 40 percent of Nigerians face poverty and food insecurity, driven in part by low agricultural productivity and low levels of technology adoption. With climate shocks expected to become more frequent and extreme, these smallholder households will be even more vulnerable to reduced agricultural productivity, loss of incomes and livelihoods, and food and nutrition insecurity.

Food systems in Africa have the potential to drive dramatic economic, food security, and environmental transformation in the coming decades, according to the 2023 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR). Realizing this potential, however, will require significant political will and investment, from both the public and the private sectors, in infrastructure, open trade, research and development, technological innovation, and enhanced education and opportunities for Africa’s rapidly expanding young population.

The challenges of climate change and food security are closely intertwined, with agriculture both driving and being impacted by extreme weather events. Policymakers around the globe are faced with the need to increase food production to feed growing populations while reducing that production’s negative impacts on the environment. According to a recent article in Global Environmental Change, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) provides an effective way to enhance countries’ climate resilience while simultaneously ensuring food and nutrition security.