Africa counting on Russia's participation in expanding agricultural production on continent

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - African countries currently import around $100 billion worth of food a year, but to ensure food security they are aiming to increase their own production, in which they count on Russia's active participation, the chairman of the African Union Commission (AUC, the African Union's secretariat) Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said at a session held as part of the Russia-Africa forum on Wednesday.

"We import about $100 billion worth of food a year, mainly rice, corn, wheat and animal fats. We believe that Africa will be able to produce more by building its own value chain," Youssouf said.

The African continent currently has 600 million hectares of land suitable for agriculture, he said. "But this land is used at 6%, that is, this is the part of the land that is provided with irrigation," he said.

To increase this figure, the continent's agricultural sector needs structural rebuilding. "We are working on this now. And the Russian agricultural sector can play an important role in increasing production in Africa itself and unlocking existing opportunities," Youssouf said. "We have the resources, but we need know-how, competencies and experience in order to establish cooperation with the Russian agricultural sector so that we can take the level of partnership between Russia and Africa to a new level," he said.

As reported, Russia supplied 18 million tonnes of grain to Africa in 2025; exports reached 13 million tonnes in 9M. Russian wheat is supplied to more than 40 African countries.