AFCON 2025: Football, Agriculture, and the Race to Africa’s Nutrition Goalpost
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Auteur : Carl Manlan
The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) underway in Morocco is more than a football spectacle. It is a live demonstration of what sustained grassroots investment and long-term vision can deliver. Teams such as Comoros, Mozambique, and Tanzania have competed credibly against traditional powerhouses, underscoring a critical truth: success on the pitch is rarely accidental. Ninety-minute performances are the visible outcome of years of grassroots investment in coaching, infrastructure, youth academies, and clear development pathways that convert raw talent into competitive excellence.
This lesson extends far beyond football. The parallels with agricultural and food systems transformation across Africa are striking. Just as natural athletic talent does not automatically translate into trophies, fertile land and favorable climates do not guarantee agricultural transformation. Morocco, now one of Africa’s standout performers in both football and agriculture, illustrates this clearly. Its food processing industry accounts for roughly 6% of GDP, placing it in the same league as Egypt and South Africa, countries that have invested consistently in research institutions, extension services, quality seed systems, soil health, market infrastructure, and agricultural finance.
Morocco’s agricultural sector today is almost unrecognizable compared to two decades ago. The Green Morocco Plan, launched in 2008, provided the long-term strategic framework that drove this shift. By 2023, agriculture contributed over 20% of the Kingdom’s exports. This was not the result of short-term policy fixes, but of sustained commitment to institution-building, coordination, and execution, mirroring
the deliberate evolution of Morocco’s football ecosystem. AFCON’s emerging competitors reinforce a central lesson: competing at the highest level is achievable with smart grassroots investment. Tanzania’s domestic league, for example, has benefited from local capital flowing into clubs such as Simba and
Yanga, with youth development at the core. The same long-term perspective must guide agricultural and food systems transformation. Countries seeking to catch up with regional leaders must invest patiently in research stations, farmer training, seed multiplication, rural roads, storage, and inclusive financial systems. These investments are inherently intergenerational, with meaningful outcomes often taking a decade or more to materialise.
One critical yet frequently overlooked factor linking sport and development is nutrition. Diet quality underpins athletic performance, influencing stamina, recovery, injury resilience, and cognitive function. Chronic undernutrition among young athletes weakens training outcomes and can cause irreversible physical harm. Children affected by stunting often lose the physical and cognitive potential required not only for competitive sport, but for productivity across all sectors.
Africa is widely regarded as a global reservoir of athletic talent, from football and basketball to middle-distance running. Yet many elite athletes emerge from communities facing food insecurity and malnutrition. Brazil offers a useful comparison. Despite its football dominance, Brazil recognised early that athletic success depended on broader human capital foundations. The Bolsa Família
Program combined poverty reduction with long-term development by linking income support to school attendance and health checkups. Improved child nutrition was one of its most significant outcomes. Brazil’s objective was not simply to produce elite athletes, but to enable an entire generation to reach its potential.
This paradox highlights why nutrition-sensitive food systems transformation remains a missing link in Africa’s development story. Imagine the multiplier effect if the same communities producing AFCON stars and Olympic champions also benefited from reliable access to safe, nutritious diets from infancy through adolescence. Many of today’s celebrated athletes succeeded despite nutritional adversity. While only a small fraction will reach global sporting stages, Africa’s broader transformation depends on food systems capable of nourishing entire populations.
Some countries are beginning to act on this understanding. Morocco’s football academies explicitly integrate nutrition into athlete development, reinforcing the idea that performance and diet are inseparable. In this sense, sporting excellence is deeply connected to agricultural transformation and nutrition-sensitive food systems and by extension to economic growth, workforce productivity, and social
stability.
Football analysis is famously candid. Commentators dissect tactical errors, highlight systemic weaknesses, and demand improvement. This honesty enables learning and adaptation. Agricultural development requires the same rigor. Policymakers and private sector actors must ask difficult questions: Which interventions are delivering results? Which reforms are stalled? Which value chains show real competitive potential?
The importance of grassroots investment cannot be overstated. Football excellence is not built solely at national team level, and agricultural transformation cannot be achieved by focusing only on large commercial farms while neglecting smallholders. The foundation must be broad-based: village-level extension services, accessible input suppliers, local processing, rural finance, and farm-to-market infrastructure. As in football, the private sector plays a catalytic role. Institutions such as CRDB in Tanzania and Stanbic Bank in Uganda demonstrate how long-term private capital can accelerate agricultural transformation when aligned with real sector opportunities.
To rival Morocco’s agricultural leadership, African nations must adopt the discipline of an AFCON contender. This requires moving beyond political cycles to invest in the “invisible” foundations: strong institutions, integrated markets, and firm-level capabilities. Just as elite footballers train for years before stepping onto the AFCON stage, sustainable agricultural transformation depends on unglamorous but essential investments in seed systems, soil health, storage, and digital finance.
On January 18 th when the final whistle blows at AFCON, the debate about whether transformation is possible will already be settled. The tournament’s rising stars prove that excellence emerges where talent meets sustained investment. The enduring question is whether African governments, corporates, and financiers will apply the same commitment to transforming agriculture and food systems for the continent’s present, and its future.
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