Twenty years ago, in many African countries, an improved variety could exist without ever reaching the farmer.
An innovation could be developed by a researcher, but remain confined to research stations. A seed company could have the potential to produce, without having access to the necessary starting seeds. And a farmer could know that a new variety existed without being able to buy it.
It is precisely this gap between innovation and its implementation that AGRA has set out to reduce over the past two decades.
In 2026, as AGRA celebrates its 20th anniversary, three success stories, from Mali to Nigeria, illustrate this evolution. Three different contexts, three individual trajectories, one and the same lesson: transforming agriculture is not only about creating better seeds. It is about building the entire system that enables these seeds to move from the laboratory to the field, and then from the field to the market.
In Mali, it all starts with a scientist
