Sub-Saharan Africa will likely need to boost food imports or expand its farmland if it is going to feed a population expected to increase 2.5-fold by 2050, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The other option – increasing yields on current farmland to reach self-sufficiency – should be pursued but is likely to fall short.
The study, “Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?” looked at 10 countries – Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia – that account for 54 percent of the population and 58 percent of the arable land in the region. Cereals, such as maize, millet, rice, sorghum, and wheat provide half of all calories there, but the countries collectively only produce enough to meet 82 percent of demand, the study said.
Meanwhile, population in these countries is projected to increase two- to more than four-fold between 2010 and 2050, the study said, and demand for cereals will increase 335 percent by 2050. Ethiopia and Zambia have managed to raise cereal yields faster than population growth, but they were the only two countries able to do so. At the same time, total cropland area has increased 14 percent in just the past 10 years.
Although these countries might produce far more on existing farmland, efforts at intensive production will likely fall short in the move toward self-sufficiency, according to the study. To feed growing demand, it called for countries to plant more crops on existing land and expand irrigated farmland in a sustainable manner. “Failure to achieve these intensification options will result in increasing dependence on cereal imports and vast expansion of rain-fed cropland area,” the study said, “and anticipated climate change will make the situation even more challenging.”