Our food systems are at a breaking point, with climate change putting lives and livelihoods at risk. While Europe and the United States are sweltering in unprecedented heatwaves, smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who grow up to 70 percent of the region’s food, are battling temperatures higher than in any year since the dawn of agriculture over 10,000 years ago.
The global funding context has also dramatically altered, with official development assistance under strain and geopolitical tensions shifting donor priorities towards defense.
The first U.N. Food Systems Summit four years ago laid out an ambitious vision for transforming how countries grow, process, and consume food—making social and environmental concerns as important as productivity and nutrition. Against a backdrop of pressing global challenges, next week’s summit in Ethiopia will take stock of how far we’ve come—and where we go next.
Despite the headwinds, I am optimistic. There is no single blueprint for food systems transformation, but there are common levers of progress. One of the most powerful of these is innovation. When combined with other key levers—smart investments and increased political will—we will see impact for farmers at scale.
Innovation is not a luxury. Accelerating access to innovation for smallholder farmers must be a priority. Ensuring they get the tools and technologies they need will enable them to grow more food, earn more income, and protect the land they depend on while limiting harmful environmental impacts.
Nowhere is this more urgent than in the production of staple crops. Demand for cereals in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to triple by 2050 as the population soars. Unless farmers can rapidly and sustainably increase their yields, the only alternative to import dependency will be massive expansion of cropland, with devastating effects on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions.
Taking a food systems approach—a holistic view that includes every aspect of food, from farm to table, and its connection with health, the environment, and the economy—requires investing quickly in a new generation of technologies and practices. This includes, for example, Fast-tracking improved crop varieties and livestock that are more resistant to drought, heat, and pests, and shifting to naturally resilient crops like millet and sorghum; unleashing the power of AI to deploy next-level mobile phone-based advisory tools and weather forecasting to help farmers judge what and when to plant; and accelerating the adoption of green fertilizers to restore soil health.
Ethiopia proves climate-smart farming pays off. In the country, innovation is already driving progress at the field level. One example is the Farmer.Chat app. Powered by AI, it allows extension agents to share highly personalized information and advice with farmers, including on the use of fertilizer and water and pest control. It works in local languages and has the preferences of women farmers baked into its design.
Impact studies have shown that its fertilizer advice alone increased crop yields by 38 percent, without increasing the amount of fertilizer used, and cut the cost of agricultural extension tenfold. The government is now scaling the tool through four states.
Importantly, global political will is aligning with opportunity: We’re seeing political will to prioritize innovation, as governments recognize the need to do more with less.
In January, African agriculture ministers adopted the Kampala Declaration, committing to mobilize a total of US$100 billion in public and private sector investment in African agriculture and food systems by 2035, including funding agricultural research and development to the tune of 1 percent of AgGDP. And at the World Bank- IMF Spring Meetings last April, finance ministers signed up to the IMF’s prescription for economic growth, which highlighted mobilizing innovations and technology adoption, alongside a better environment for business by removing excessive regulation and fighting corruption.
The next frontier will be to finance and scale. For innovation to drive lasting, systems-level change, including transforming policy frameworks and other underlying structures, we now need to unlock financing and scale it up.
Private sector capital will be critical, as will climate finance directed towards adaptation. Currently, food systems receive only 4 percent of climate finance, and only 1 percent of total climate finance goes to smallholder farmers. For many African governments, high debt-servicing costs leave little fiscal space for public investment, even when political will is strong.
COP30 in Brazil will be a key moment. The “Baku to Belém Roadmap” includes a commitment to identify how to scale up climate finance from $300 billion to the estimated US$1.3 trillion needed. However, with persistent disagreement at the Bonn climate talks over inadequate funding for loss and damage and the role of public versus private finance in meeting shortfalls, followed by many leaders opting not to attend the Financing for Development Conference, current efforts are not encouraging.
What matters now is finding common ground to turn commitment into action and ensuring food systems are at the center of the conversation. The promise of impactful new technologies, as Ethiopia is already demonstrating, provides an important key towards finding this common ground.
This is a critical juncture for global food systems. Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are operating in uncharted territory. But with the right investment in innovation—adapted to context, accessible to all, and supported by smart policy—they can be at the forefront of food systems transformation.
UNFSS+4 is our chance to turn momentum into sustained progress through greater investment and a bold commitment to innovation.
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Photo courtesy of Eyelit Studio, Unsplash
