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Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) 2026 has flagged off its programme of engagements with a grassroots farmers’ town hall in Iseyin, Oyo State, bringing together over 300 smallholder farmers for practical conversations around climate-smart agriculture, market readiness and the growing role of digital tools in farming.
The engagement comes ahead of the main Agriculture Summit Africa 2026 conference on September 15 and 16 and extends this year’s conversation beyond the conference room to the farmers and producers at the heart of Africa’s food system.
Held in collaboration with Whole Eats Africa, the engagement focused on some of the everyday realities shaping agricultural productivity, from adapting farming practices to changing climate conditions to improving access to markets and helping farmers take advantage of technology across the agricultural value chain.
The initiative reflects this year’s ASA theme, “Building the Next Superpower: Africa’s Food Power Play,” which will bring together farmers, policymakers, financial institutions, investors, agribusinesses, development organisations and innovators to examine the systems Africa must strengthen if it is to translate its agricultural potential into greater food security, industrial capacity and economic influence.
Speaking on the purpose of the engagement, Dr. Olushola Obikanye, Group Head, Agric Finance and Solid Minerals, Sterling Bank, said, “The decision to begin the ASA 2026 conversation at the grassroots was deliberate. If we are serious about building Africa into a food powerhouse, then the people producing our food cannot be at the margins of the conversation. The journey has to begin with understanding what farmers are experiencing, the constraints they are navigating and the support they need to become more productive, more resilient and better connected to markets.”
“Agriculture Summit Africa brings policymakers, financiers, investors and other ecosystem players together, but engagements like this ensure that the conversations we have at that level remain grounded in the realities of the people working across the value chain,” he added.
The Iseyin town hall also provided a platform for farmers to engage around climate-smart practices, improved market participation and the opportunities that digital agriculture can create for smaller producers.
Kemi Jeje, Founder, Whole Eats Africa, said strengthening Africa’s food systems requires deliberately closing the gap between high-level agricultural conversations and the realities facing farmers.
“Farmers already hold an enormous amount of knowledge about their land, their crops and their communities. What is needed is to complement that knowledge with better access to information, markets, technology and the right partnerships. Our work with the farmers across Nigeria is about ensuring that they are not simply beneficiaries of decisions made elsewhere, but active participants in shaping the future of agriculture. As the wider ASA conversation begins, it is important that the voices and experiences of farmers travel with us into that room,” Jeje shared.
For Sterling Bank, which has agriculture as one of the priority sectors under its HEART strategy, the pre-summit engagement reinforces the importance of strengthening connections across the entire agricultural ecosystem, from primary production and aggregation to finance, processing, technology, distribution and markets.
Rather than approaching the challenge of food security solely from the perspective of increasing production, ASA 2026 will explore how Africa can build stronger agricultural value chains, mobilise investment, expand processing capacity, improve intra-African trade and create the infrastructure required to turn agriculture into a more productive and competitive engine of economic growth.
The grassroots engagement therefore serves as an opening chapter to a broader conversation that will continue next week, when global organisations, private and public sector leaders, farmers, innovators, investors, development partners and policymakers converge in Abuja to shape Africa’s food power play.
Interested participants can register for the conference by visiting agricsummit.org.
