AGRA is focused on putting smallholder farmers at the centre of the continent's growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives.
As the sector that employs the majority of Africa's people, nearly all of them small-scale farmers, AGRA recognizes that developing smallholder agriculture into a productive, efficient, and sustainable system is essential to ensuring food security, lifting millions out of poverty, and driving equitable growth across the continent.
[3][4] Former UN Secretary General, the Late Kofi Annan, was the organization's first chairman and he served until 2013 when Econet Wireless Founder Strive Masiyiwa took over.
She is deputized by Prof. Hamadi Boga, Former Principal Secretary, in the State Department of Crop Development and Agricultural Research in Kenya and Jonathan Said.
AGRA's strategy is delivered through interventions in four priority areas; input systems, resilience building, innovative finance, and policy/country support.
AGRA is primarily guided by its partners across the continent, starting with the leadership of African states through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) coordination under the Malabo declaration.
It also works in partnership with other national actors in the private sector, farmers organizations, the academic and research community, and civil society.