Africa’s drive to transform from a net food importer into a global agricultural powerhouse takes center stage this September as Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) returns for its ninth edition. Operating under the theme “Building the Next Superpower: Africa’s Food Power Play,” the continent’s premier agricultural event will hold in Abuja on 15 and 16 September 2026. Convened by Sterling Bank, the summit was unveiled at a high-profile press conference in Lagos, where the bank’s leadership united with public sector representatives, development partners and agribusiness pioneers to set the agenda for the continent’s food future.
The summit arrives against a paradox that has long defined African agriculture: a continent rich in arable land, labour and appetite, yet still dependent on imports to feed itself. Rapid population growth and a changing climate are sharpening the pressure, even as the capital, infrastructure and markets needed to turn farming into a competitive food economy have been slow to follow. For farmers, this results in potential that rarely translates into income and harvests that too often fail to reach the market at full value. It is that gap, between what the land can produce and what the economy captures, that ASA 2026 sets out to confront.
