CETRI
As AGRA turns 20, a new report exposes its worsening failure to double productivity and incomes and halve undernourishment in participating African nations as promised.
AGRA still failing Africa’s farmers
The multi-billion-dollar initiative, by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, has been pursued over the last twenty years in 13 focus countries.
After considerable evidence of failure became apparent, it abandoned its original ambitious goals in 2022, adopting AGRA 3.0, focusing on food systems and policy reforms.
It also ‘rebranded’ by changing its name to AGRA, removing its explicit association with the much criticised Green Revolution. Wise’s 2020 assessment of AGRA up to 2018 found progress on its own declared goals quite modest and uneven.
Wise’s latest review finds even slower productivity growth and worsening hunger under AGRA compared to before 2006. Its improved seeds and fertilizer promotion did not even achieve sustainable intensification, i.e., growing much more food on the same land.
Dubious progress
But yield growth has been slow and uneven. Productivity grew more slowly than before 2006 despite billions of dollars spent on subsidies for a few AGRA-favoured crops.
High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidised.
But subsidies have encouraged planting favoured crops on new farmland. Modest yield growth often failed to cover the costs of more expensive inputs, leaving farmers in debt.
Meanwhile, cultivation and yields of millet, a nutritious climate-resilient staple, has declined over the last two decades.
Instead of halving the number of hungry, undernourishment has risen by 58% in participating countries since 2006. Tragically, the number of hungry in the 13 AGRA countries nearly doubled over the last six years !
AGRA unmonitored
CAADP called for dramatically raising government spending on agriculture to 10% of government budgets. However, most governments failed to provide the required funding.
But many governments, particularly in AGRA countries, have spent large shares of their scarce public resources on agriculture. Many have invested in Green Revolution programmes.
Despite setting similar productivity, income, and hunger objectives, by 2025, no country met CAADP’s targets according to its rigorous biennial progress reports using more benchmarks.
High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidised.
AGRA’s main initiatives, involving input markets and industrial farming, are too costly for most small-scale farmers, benefiting wealthier farmers more.
For Wise, the poor outcomes are not solely or even primarily due to AGRA. Instead, he blames the Green Revolution approach, previously strongly supported by private foundations and now by the World Bank Group.
In contrast, Senegal, not one of the AGRA 13, has succeeded in halving hunger, with more diversified policies supporting a wider range of crops and farming methods.
What failure ?
With fewer measurable goals, progress reports now focus on the number of commercial seeds produced, private financing generated, and enterprises launched.
Instead, AGRA claimed, “we directly reached 11 million farmers and indirectly reached 26 million farmers. This achievement significantly outstripped our initial targets to reach 30 million smallholder households.”
‘Reaching’ 37 million farmers, mostly ‘indirectly’, says little about its actual impacts on farmers. Unsurprisingly, most donors have cut support for AGRA.
Now, AGRA is influencing national and continent-wide policymaking to accelerate agricultural commercialisation. Its new focus on food systems and policies shifts attention as its website now makes little mention of productivity or small-scale farmers.
Whither AGRA ?
Increased food production and sales were supposed to reduce rural poverty and hunger. Instead, malnutrition has risen in most AGRA countries, as dietary diversity has declined with crop diversity.
Asia’s Green Revolution offered far more support to farmers than Africa’s, although its achievements have been more mixed than typically claimed. Africa’s Green Revolution has offered much less, mainly improved commercial seeds.
AGRA still denies the failure of its earlier policies. Instead, it now pays lip service to low-input approaches including agroecology.
In 2025, AGRA president Agnes Kalibata acknowledged, as she stepped down from her post, “Part of why [AGRA] rebranded was that the Green Revolution ship has sailed. We can’t continue pursuing what’s not working for others.”
After twenty years, AGRA should take heed of that advice.
The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa will release its report, drawing on Wise’s research, on August 24.
