The 2016 Agriculture Status Report has as its main objective to: (i) highlight major trends in African agriculture, the drivers of those trends, and the emerging challenges that Africa’s food systems are facing in the 21st century; (ii) identify policies and programs that can support the movement of Africa’s farming systems from subsistence-oriented towards more commercialized farming systems that can raise productivity, increase incomes, generate employment and contribute to economic growth; (iii) identify areas that enable better targeting of investment resources to increase agriculture productivity; (iv) identify the necessary conditions, appropriate technologies, and institutions that can propel and catalyze African agricultural transformation; (v) examine the past and the present role of public and private sector investment in agriculture, and the success factors that can be scaled up to accelerate transformation; and (vi) explore how agricultural transformation can contribute to solving the reality of rural poverty, low productivity, food insecurity, malnutrition, unemployment, and lower income among the population in countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These objectives have been addressed in the 11 chapters of the Report.