TY  - JA
AU  - van Ittersum,M.K.
AU  - Alimagham,S.
AU  - Silva,J.V.
AU  - Adjei-Nsiah,S.
AU  - Baijukya,F.
AU  - Bala,A.
AU  - Chikowo,R.
AU  - Grassini,P.
AU  - Groot,H.L.E.de
AU  - Nshizirungu,A.
AU  - Abdelkader Mahamane Soulé
AU  - Sulser,T.B.
AU  - Taulya,G.
AU  - Tenorio,F.A.
AU  - Fantaye,K.T.
AU  - Shen Yuan
AU  - van Loon,M.P.
TI  - Prospects for cereal self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan Africa
SN  - 0027-8424
PY  - 2025///
CY  - Washington, DC (United States of America)
PB  - National Academy of Sciences, 
KW  - Cereals
KW  - AGROVOC
KW  - Climate change
KW  - Food supply
KW  - Yield potential
KW  - Self sufficiency
KW  - Africa South of Sahara
N1  - Peer review; Open Access
N2  - Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the world’s largest projected increase in demand for food. Increased dependence on imports makes SSA vulnerable to geopolitical and economic risks, while further expansion of agricultural land is environmentally harmful. Cereals, in particular, maize, millet, rice, sorghum, and wheat, take nearly 50% of the cropland and 43% of the calories and proteins consumed in the region. Demand is projected to double until 2050. Here, we assess recent developments in cereal self-sufficiency and provide outlooks until 2050 under different intensification, area expansion, and climate change scenarios. We use detailed data for ten countries. Cereal self-sufficiency increased between 2010 and 2020 from 84 to 92% despite the 29% population increase. The production increase was achieved by increased yields per hectare (44%), area expansion (34%), and a shift from millet to the higher yielding maize (22%). Outlooks for 2050 are less pessimistic than earlier assessments because of the larger 2020 baseline area, higher shares of maize and somewhat less steep projected population increase. Yet, to halt further area expansion, a drastic trend change in annual yield increase from the present 20 to 58 kg ha−1 y−1 is needed to achieve cereal self-sufficiency. While such yield increases have been achieved elsewhere and are feasible given the yield potentials in SSA, they require structural changes and substantial agronomic, socioeconomic, and political investments. We estimate that amounts of added nitrogen need to at least triple to achieve such yield improvements, but it is essential that this comes with improved context-specific agronomy
UR  - https://hdl.handle.net/10883/35805
DO  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2423669122
T2  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ER  -