Agriculture is at the core of many of humankind’s greatest challenges: how to feed a population fast rising to 10 billion, how to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and how to protect and restore vital ecosystems and agro-biodiversity. These challenges are particularly pronounced in Africa, where productivity remains far short of potential, hindered by poverty, drought, land degradation, low budget allocations to the sector, and in some cases, corruption
and turmoil.