The third quarter of 2026 showed AFSA operating across the full landscape of Africa’s food systems transformation. From parliamentary chambers and continental policy processes to farmer fields, media spaces, youth platforms and international forums, the work moved steadily between ideas and action. The Pan African Parliament’s decision to advance a continental Model Law on African Food Policy created an important opening for greater coherence in how Africa governs food, agriculture, health, trade and the environment. At the same time, AFSA strengthened advocacy for farmer managed seed systems, challenged provisions in the proposed East African Community Seed and Plant Varieties Bill, and continued pressing for laws that recognise farmers not as beneficiaries of seed systems, but as their custodians and rights holders.
The quarter also placed difficult questions about finance and agricultural development firmly on the table. At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, through the release of The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa, and in AFSA’s support for the Food, Land & Money report, a consistent question emerged: who controls the resources shaping Africa’s agricultural future, and whose interests do those investments ultimately serve? These interventions were matched by practical alternatives. In Yaoundé, 198 participants from the six Congo Basin countries adopted a regional action agenda for agroecology, biodiversity and climate justice. In Kenya, farmers, scientists and development partners advanced plans for an African agenda on locally produced biofertilisers. In Tanzania, researchers, farmer organisations and policymakers examined how evidence can better influence policy, while a new urban agroecology learning series began connecting practical experiences from African cities.
Climate action was another defining thread. In Ethiopia, AFSA connected negotiators and civil society directly with agroecology in practice before convening more than 130 participants from 33 countries to shape a common African civil society position towards COP31 and COP32. In Harare, AFSA entered the technical spaces where the next decade of CAADP implementation will be measured and financed, defending the place of agroecology in national and regional investment plans. At the same time, 24 journalists from 15 countries were equipped to investigate the science, seed politics and financial flows behind African food systems, while young agroecology entrepreneurs used International Youth Day to demonstrate that ecological farming can also generate livelihoods, innovation and opportunity. The Battle for African Agriculture podcast carried these conversations further, connecting science, policy, women’s experiences, environmental leadership and African knowledge with wider public debate.
This was also a quarter of profound loss. The passing of Sena Alouka, founding Chair of AFSA’s Climate and Agroecology Working Group, touched the entire movement. His life embodied many of the values reflected throughout this edition: belief in young people, courage in confronting harmful systems, faith in African knowledge and the conviction that organised communities can change their future. His absence is deeply felt, but the work carried across these pages is also part of the legacy he leaves behind. The third quarter therefore closes with both achievement and responsibility: important doors have opened, stronger alliances have been built and clearer alternatives have been articulated. The task now is to carry that momentum forward and ensure that Africa’s food systems are shaped increasingly by the people who grow, protect, prepare and depend on its food.
