Agri-food systems have been a major driving force for economic development in many sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). They provide employment opportunities for many people directly and indirectly at different nodes of the food system. Agri-food systems also provide raw materials for many industries, thereby facilitating the development of the industrial sector, and contributing to addressing malnutrition and food insecurity by providing people with nutritious food. This evidence suggests that the ability of African countries to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends greatly on the prevailing agri-food systems. However, current agri-food systems are not resilient or sustainable enough to supply countries with sufficient and nutritious food to meet the ever-increasing demand for it. This situation is expected to be worsened by a harsher climate in the future, as projections indicate that food systems may be increasingly exposed to temperature extremes, and arid, and semi-arid conditions in the near future, which could result in significant production losses caused by moisture stress.
Climate change and variability present a great challenge for the 21st-century food systems in SSA. Evidence shows that poverty and food insecurity are more prevalent in SSA, particularly in areas where climate change and variability are more pronounced, and further made worse by conflicts and inflation.
Therefore, it is important to build resilient and sustainable food systems in Africa by strategically focusing on strengthening the adaptive capacity of smallholder producers to sustainably increase farm productivity and food supply. Also, ensuring rural farmers’ access to and usage of climate information services is crucial in stimulating adaptation measures. Access to relevant climate information could guide farmers in their production and marketing related decisions by informing their crop choice, technology adoption, input use (intensification), and commercialization decisions to enhance yields and curb the potential adverse effects of bad weather conditions.
In Volume I of this collection, nine papers have explored this issue focusing on thematic areas that analysed the nexus between climate change, variability, and sustainable food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The most important outcome is the urgency to develop effective strategies to enable policymakers to make the necessary transformation to build a climate-resilient food system. These strategies may include the promotion of carbon smart technologies, especially conservation agriculture, and agroforestry, valorising the local knowledge on agroforestry practices to make them more accessible to development practitioners, and the promotion of climate resilient crop varieties. As a last pivotal point, there is the need to develop and implement an appropriate decision framework to reduce climate risks and strengthen resilience in the aquaculture system by conducting environmental risk assessments before applying major agricultural development policies, in order to minimize unintended negative impacts.
Even if the COVID-19 pandemic has been officially overcome, new challenges are affecting food security, and climate change impacts are getting more evident and severe. Thus, with Volume II of this collection authors are invited to submit original empirical research to suggest further strategies to achieve a climate-resilient and sustainable food system. Submissions may cover the following themes (but are not limited to):
1. The impact of climate change or variability on sustainable farm productivity and food security;
2. The role of adaptation strategies to climate change in ensuring sustainable rural farm productivity food security, and resilience;
3. Vulnerability to climate change and the sustainable food and nutrition security nexus;
4. Climate variability, crop diversification, and sustainable food and child nutrition security
5. Understanding drivers of farmers’ access to climate information service, and its impact on welfare and food security;
6. The contribution of climate information services to the adoption of adaptation strategies;
7. The impact of climate change on the seed industry and its implications for farmers' access to quality seed for important food crops in SSA and Asia;
8. Climate change impacts on agriculture and adaptation measures using econometrics, crop models, and bioeconomic models under current and potential future climatic conditions;
9. General adaptive measures to reduce the potential adverse effects of harsher future climate in crop-livestock systems in specific contexts and locations.
Climate Change, Variability and Sustainable Food Systems Volume I