Monitoring agriculture is imperative for food security and measuring progress toward United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. Earth-observations (EO) have unmatched potential to provide the required data at scale. However, without significant investments in human capacity and technology adoption through policy, realizing functioning and robust monitoring systems is unattainable for many developing countries, particularly in Africa, where investments are still limited. We present a framework for EO-based agriculture monitoring systems that emerged from implementing several national EO-based agriculture monitoring systems in Africa leveraging the best available data, systems, and existing country structures. A key conclusion is that implementation should be phased, and commitment and internal resources at the national level are necessary for long-term sustainability and adopting new advances.