Addis Ababa, April 4, 2026 (FMC) — Soil is more than an agricultural input in Africa — it underpins food systems, livelihoods, and economic resilience, says Aggie Asiimwe Konde, Director of Communications, Innovations, External Engagements, and Advocacy at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
In a recent article, Konde highlighted that soil holds untapped potential to address food insecurity, restore ecosystems, and drive economic growth. Yet despite decades of investment, it remains undervalued, limiting productivity and returns across the continent.
Smallholder farmers, she notes, invest significant labor, capital, and time each season — preparing land, planting, applying fertilizers, and managing crops through increasingly unpredictable weather. Yet many farms struggle to break even due to costs, market volatility, and post-harvest losses, leaving productivity stagnant and vulnerability high.
“The constraint is not farmer effort,” Konde writes. “It is that soil, the primary productive asset, is rarely managed as one.” For decades, soil has been treated as a passive medium rather than capital. Uniform input approaches on degraded or variable landscapes have produced diminishing returns and weakened biological and physical systems.
Konde emphasizes a “tipping point” in agricultural systems. Below a certain threshold, farms operate at subsistence levels: productivity remains low, soil health declines, and income barely covers costs. External shocks — whether climatic or market-related — push systems deeper into risk.
When soil health improves — nutrients efficiently used, water retained, and biological processes restored — farms cross the break-even threshold. Productivity stabilizes, surplus becomes possible, and agriculture shifts from coping to competing.
Achieving this requires deliberate soil management: rebuilding organic matter, restoring biological activity, and applying inputs according to actual soil needs. Water management, crop selection, and agronomic practices must match local conditions. Integrated soil and landscape restoration projects across Africa show these practices can sustainably boost productivity while reducing degradation.
The benefits compound over time. Farms consistently beyond the break-even point can reinvest in better technologies, diversify into higher-value crops, accumulate soil organic carbon, and reduce reliance on rainfall. Productivity gains strengthen resilience, stabilize supply chains, and open opportunities in emerging climate and sustainability markets.
For businesses, soil health directly affects reliability and trust. “Investing in soil is not a peripheral ESG activity,” Konde writes. “It is a system-level intervention that strengthens productivity, stabilizes supply, mitigates climate risk, and underpins durable growth.”
Companies that recognize soil as a strategic asset are best positioned to capture Africa’s next decade of growth — built from the ground up, she further noted.