By George Ozalla

Africa must move from food security to food power by building stronger agricultural value chains, expanding access to finance, improving market connections and investing in the infrastructure required to turn its vast agricultural resources into economic strength, stakeholders at the ninth Agriculture Summit Africa have said.

The two-day summit, convened by Sterling Bank Limited, ended on Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, bringing together policymakers, financial institutions, investors, agribusiness operators, farmers, development partners, technology companies and other players in the agricultural value chain.

The 2026 edition was held under the theme, “Building the Next Superpower: Africa’s Food Power Play,” with discussions focused on reducing Africa’s dependence on food imports, strengthening agricultural production and processing, mobilising investment and building more resilient food systems.

The organisers said Africa has about 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated arable land but still imports more than $50 billion worth of food annually, describing the situation as a major gap between the continent’s agricultural potential and its capacity to turn that potential into productive wealth.

Group Executive, Corporate and Investment Banking at Sterling Bank, Dele Faseemo, said agriculture remained central to the bank’s HEART strategy covering Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation.

Faseemo disclosed that Sterling Bank’s financing across the five priority sectors rose by 39 per cent to N331.7 billion in 2025, with agriculture recording one of the sharpest increases.

He said the bank was deliberately putting its balance sheet behind farmers, processors, off-takers and agribusinesses working to turn Nigeria’s agricultural resources into livelihoods and economic opportunities.

“When Sterling talks about agriculture, we are speaking as a bank that puts its balance sheet where its convictions are,” Faseemo said.

Group Head, Agric Finance and Solid Minerals at Sterling Bank, Dr Olushola Obikanye, said Africa’s food challenge represented a major economic opportunity given its agricultural resources and growing population.

Obikanye said Agriculture Summit Africa had become a platform for bringing together policymakers, investors, financial institutions, agribusinesses, technology providers and development partners to accelerate investment and strengthen Africa’s food systems.

He stressed the need to move the conversation beyond land and farming to the systems required to make agriculture commercially productive, including finance, processing, storage, technology, infrastructure and market access.

Obikanye also said the continent needed to move from food dependence to food power, arguing that Africa must connect production to processing, farmers to markets, finance to enterprise and technology to productivity.

The summit’s discussions reflected the position that Africa cannot build food power by concentrating only on production. Participants examined the need to process more of what the continent produces, create reliable markets for farmers, attract long-term capital and develop infrastructure capable of moving agricultural products efficiently from farms to consumers and industries.

A major component of the two-day event was the deal room, designed to connect agribusinesses with investors, development finance institutions, commercial buyers, technical assistance providers and other potential partners.

On the first day, women-led and youth-owned agribusinesses presented opportunities requiring growth capital, technical assistance and market access. Climate-smart agriculture also featured prominently, with discussions around regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, irrigation, cold-chain development and green finance.

Another session focused on the cassava value chain, including processing expansion, aggregator linkages and commercial off-take opportunities.

The second day concentrated on established businesses in major agricultural value chains, including cocoa, soy, rice, maize, livestock and fisheries. The businesses held structured one-on-one meetings with investors and development finance institutions, while separate engagements were organised for early-stage agricultural technology companies and enterprises seeking technical assistance.

The closing sessions focused on commercial arrangements, expressions of interest and the structuring of capital and off-take opportunities, with the organisers saying the intention was to ensure that investment conversations generated at the summit could continue beyond the conference.

The closing session also announced a 180-day post-summit tracking process to monitor investment, commercial and partnership opportunities emerging from the deal room. Nathaniel Odiba, Dealroom Manager of the Nigeria Agribusiness Register, handled the opening deal-room ground rules and the closing session.

The summit had also taken its message to farmers before the Abuja gathering, with more than 300 smallholder farmers participating in a town hall in Iseyin, Oyo State.

The engagement focused on climate-smart agriculture, market readiness and the use of digital tools by smallholder farmers. Obikanye said farmers could not be left at the margins of discussions about Africa’s food future.

“If we are serious about building Africa into a food powerhouse, then the people producing our food cannot be at the margins of the conversation,” he said.

Sterling Bank’s Managing Director, Abubakar Suleiman, delivered the welcome address at the Abuja summit, which also featured representatives from government, international development organisations, financial institutions and private businesses.

The Agriculture Summit Africa was initiated by Sterling Bank in 2018 as a platform focused initially on Nigeria’s rural agricultural enterprise. The maiden summit brought together smallholder farmers, input suppliers, agro-processing entrepreneurs, development finance institutions, policymakers and business leaders to examine how agriculture could contribute more significantly to the Nigerian economy.

The initiative expanded into a broader African platform the following year, with the 2019 edition built around the theme, “Agriculture – Your Piece of the $1tr Economy,” and bringing together policymakers, development agencies, international financial institutions, investors and value-chain operators to examine opportunities in Africa’s agricultural sector.

Since then, the annual summit has developed into a continental platform for discussions on agricultural finance, food security, climate resilience, technology, investment and value-chain development.

The 2024 edition, also held at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, focused on transitioning from scarcity to security, while the 2025 edition placed greater emphasis on green finance, climate-smart agriculture and Africa’s food future.

The 2026 edition continued that focus, but with a stronger emphasis on investment and direct business connections, as farmers, financial institutions, investors and agribusinesses met in Abuja to discuss how Africa can produce, process and trade more of its own food.