This chapter investigates agro-industry and agribusiness in contemporary Africa. At a continental level, the wider category of agribusiness, including both upstream (input) activities and downstream processing activities, as well as distribution and marketing, is estimated to account for approximately one fifth of GDP for sub- Saharan Africa and just under half of the region’s value added in manufacturing and services. For individual African countries where data are available, the share of total manufacturing value added of the two primary agro- industrial subsectors (food and beverages, and tobacco) alone ranges from 17 per cent in South Africa to 47 per cent in Ethiopia.

Agribusiness for Africa’s Prosperity presents the state-of-the-art of agribusiness development in Africa. This work analyses the challenges, the potential and opportunities of African agribusiness in the current period of dramatic changes in global agro-industrial markets, and builds a case for agribusiness development as a path to Africa’s prosperity.