African Food Security Status and Challenges of Climate Change

Abstract

Food security is assured when all people at all times have
both physical and economic access to sufficient food to
meet their dietary needs for a more productive and healthy
life. Food insecurity in Africa has been increasing over the
years despite the existing measures to ensure sustainable
agriculture and food security in line with the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). Climate change, disease, and
pest infestation, conflict and wars as well as poverty are
noted to be responsible for the prevailing food insecurity.
Some of the gaps in the literature include modalities for
successful transformation of African agriculture, research
on agricultural development, and various ways of
rejuvenating African agriculture to deal with climate
change. This study is an attempt to respond to the
following questions: How effective are the indices used in
measuring food security? What is the status of agricultural
development in Africa? What should be done to
successfully transform and invigorate small-scale farming
in the continent? This is a review article using secondary
data from various literature sources (journals, books, book
chapters, and reports, among others). The humanecological system theory, the sustainable livelihoods
approach and the pulley of agricultural innovation were to
develop small-scale farm food security approach, where
the small-scale farmer becomes the centre of food security innovations and development for sustainable food and
nutrition security. The discussions underscore the
importance of paying more attention to the environment
and climate change within small-scale farms, giving more
support to women farmers and identifying centres of
agronomic practices for better innovation and
transformation. There is also inadequate literature on
sources of undernutrition, negligence of indigenous crops,
inadequate investment in agriculture and less
prioritization of small-scale farmers. The study concluded
that special effort needs to be made towards food security
in Africa through policy reforms and a review of
agronomic practices to enable the continent adapt to the
adverse impacts of weather and climate extremes.