Can Sub-Saharan Africa feed its growing cities?

A growing and largely urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa will require more food, putting pressure on land and water resources. Mixed progress in making agriculture more efficient combined with climate change threatens the region’s food security. Local water management measures, such as better irrigation or water harvesting, can boost food production.

We found that ambitious yet realistic adoption of such measures increases food supply to cities and make the region as a whole self-sufficient. Better use of water would limit the expansion of land to grow food which helps to preserve biodiversity, combat climate change, and reduce land use-related conflicts.

The analysis was based on a combination of our global crop production computer simulations, converted into food energy supply, with the latest data on crop food demand. Applying an innovative foodshed ‘search and allocate’ algorithm using travel time open source data, we then delineated foodsheds of all major cities in Africa.