Africa's Food Import Bill Exceeds $100 Billion a Year, AU Says

African Union heads of state gathered in Kampala from 9 to 11 January 2025 to adopt a ten-year agricultural strategy built around a number stark enough to anchor the entire framework: Africa spends more than $100 billion every year importing food it has the land to grow itself. The summit produced the Kampala Declaration and the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2026-2035, formally launched at a follow-up event in Johannesburg that May. It is the third major continental agricultural strategy in two decades, following the 2003 Maputo Declaration and the 2014 Malabo Declaration, and it now serves as the African Union's governing framework for agricultural policy through 2035. The Number Driving the Strategy Ambassador Josefa Sacko, the AU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment, and other officials at the summit repeatedly framed the continent's food import dependency as both an economic and a security problem. Over 280 million Africans live with chronic hunger, according to figures cited at the summit, even as the continent holds an estimated 65% of the world's remaining uncultivated arable land, a gap AU officials described as one of the clearest markers of underused agricultural capacity anywhere in the global food system. "For us to guarantee our future as Africans, we must feed ourselves," Ugandan Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja told delegates, urging them to develop actionable proposals for reducing the continent's food import dependency rather than treating the $100 billion figure as an abstract statistic. Major General David Kasura-Kyomukama, Uganda's permanent secretary for agriculture, put the contradiction even more directly: "The irony is obvious, and it is within us as Africans to resolve it." The Detail That Changes How the Problem Looks One figure from the summit deserves more attention than the headline $100 billion number has received: Kasura-Kyomukama noted that just five countries account for roughly 50% of Africa's total food import bill. That detail reframes the entire problem. A $100 billion figure spread evenly across 54 countries suggests a broad, continent-wide production shortfall. A figure where half the spending concentrates in five markets suggests something narrower and more specific: a handful of large, often more urbanised or import-dependent economies driving most of the total, while many other African countries contribute comparatively little to the aggregate bill. Separate reporting on Africa's largest food importers supports that concentration. Egypt is consistently identified as the continent's single largest food importer, spending an estimated $10-12 billion annually on wheat, maize and vegetable oil. Nigeria follows at an estimated $8-10 billion, driven substantially by a growing urban middle class demanding dairy, poultry and processed foods that limited domestic processing capacity can't yet supply. South Africa, despite being a net food exporter in many categories, still spends an estimated $7-8 billion importing rice, wheat and palm oil, mostly from Asia and South America. Algeria and Morocco round out a plausible top five, each spending an estimated $5-7 billion annually on cereals and dairy sourced largely from the European Union. Why the Number Keeps Climbing The trajectory matters as much as the current figure. Africa's food import bill has grown roughly 3.4% annually since 1980, driven substantially by population growth, and the trend has accelerated markedly in the past decade and a half: from an estimated $33 billion in 2010, to roughly $50 billion around 2020, with the UN Economic Commission for Africa projecting in 2021 that the figure could reach $110 billion by 2025. That 2021 ECA projection is the direct ancestor of the "over $100 billion" figure cited at the Kampala summit, and it tracks closely with FAO's own more recent, narrower $65 billion Sub-Saharan Africa figure once North Africa's contribution is added back in. That consistency across independently produced estimates, an AU summit figure, a UN ECA projection, and FAO's own regional data, gives the roughly $100 billion continental range more credibility than any single citation would carry alone, even though the exact figure varies somewhat depending on the year and dataset used. What the Strategy Actually Prioritises The CAADP 2026-2035 Strategy and Action Plan explicitly frames agro-industrialisation, integrating agricultural production into supply chains and value-addition, as central to reducing food insecurity and poverty, rather than treating increased raw production alone as sufficient. The strategy document identifies subsidiarity and harnessing regional complementarities as a core principle, explicitly stating that country-level interventions alone will be insufficient and that regional coordination is required, a framing that lines up closely with the argument this publication has made separately about East Africa's own fragmented regional food economy, where surplus in one country coexists with shortage in a neighbouring one. The strategy also draws direct lines to the AU's broader Agenda 2063 vision, positioning food security and reduced import dependence as part of transforming agriculture into a leading driver of economic growth continent-wide, rather than treating agricultural policy as a rural welfare question separate from broader industrial and trade policy. Where This Leaves the Continent Now More than a year and a half into the ten-year window the CAADP strategy covers, the plan's success will ultimately be measured against the same $100 billion figure that justified its creation: whether Africa's food import bill stabilises, declines, or continues climbing at its historical 3.4% annual pace regardless of the new strategy's adoption. The concentration finding, that five countries drive roughly half the total, suggests the most efficient path to measurable progress may run through targeted intervention in Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria and Morocco's specific import dependencies, alongside the broader regional production and processing investments the strategy calls for elsewhere on the continent. Whether the AU's member states treat that concentration as an argument for prioritised, targeted investment or continue pursuing uniform continent-wide programmes will be one of the clearer early signals of whether CAADP 2026-2035 becomes materially different from the two strategic frameworks that preceded it. FAQ How much does Africa actually spend importing food each year? Estimates vary by scope and year, but African Union officials cited a figure exceeding $100 billion annually at the January 2025 Kampala summit, while a 2021 UN Economic Commission for Africa projection put the figure at $110 billion by 2025. FAO's more narrowly scoped Sub-Saharan Africa-only figure for 2025 was $65 billion. Why do different sources cite $65 billion versus over $100 billion? Scope. The $65 billion figure covers Sub-Saharan Africa only, excluding Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. The $100 billion-plus figure covers the whole continent, and North Africa, led by Egypt's estimated $10-12 billion in annual food imports, accounts for most of the difference. Is Africa's food import bill concentrated in a few countries or spread evenly? Concentrated. Officials at the January 2025 CAADP summit stated that five countries account for roughly 50% of Africa's total food import bill, with Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria and Morocco most commonly identified as the largest importers. What is the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2026-2035? The African Union's third major continental agricultural strategy, following the 2003 Maputo Declaration and 2014 Malabo Declaration, adopted via the Kampala Declaration in January 2025 and formally launched in Johannesburg in May 2025, aimed at transforming Africa's agrifood systems and reducing food import dependence through 2035. Who are Africa's largest food-importing countries? Egypt (an estimated $10-12 billion annually), Nigeria ($8-10 billion), South Africa ($7-8 billion), and Algeria and Morocco (each an estimated $5-7 billion), according to trade data reviewed across 2020-2024. Has Africa's food import bill always been this large? No, it has grown steadily for decades, from an estimated $33 billion in 2010 to roughly $50 billion around 2020, and has continued climbing at an estimated 3.4% annual rate since 1980, driven substantially by population growth.