Dear Colleagues,

Food security, climate, and land use change are interconnected. This Special Issue intends to explore this connection. In Africa, food security is often impacted by systems of land use and climate change variations. Elements of climate change such as precipitation, temperature, and greenhouse gases have been known to historically have adverse effects on food systems. While the climate–food-security nexus has dominated scholarship for a long time, the possible repercussions of land use change have been ignored. Elements of land use change such as agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization are increasingly being used to account for our current food security charts. In fact, there is a current surge in the need to assert whether the state of food security in Africa is driven by mainly climate-related variables, variables related to land use change, or both. This way of looking at things is greatly shifting the food security debate in Africa. A look at large-scale Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices across Africa from the 1970s transitioning through the 1980s into the 1990s and beyond shows that the Sahel for example is getting greener amidst declining crop yields. This new evidence is associated with increasing rainfall across the Sahel and maybe gains in reforestation. If precipitation is increasing and food security is still a major issue, then it will be lopsided to subscribe entirely to the climate school of thought in which climate is the main driver of food systems. This has shifted the food security debate in Africa, and it is now strategic to have studies that handle variables related to both land use and climate change. As such, this Special Issue seeks to address the climate and land use change dilemma for crop systems across Africa. Papers will be accepted addressing scales ranging from regional and national to catchment area. From this Special Issue, we hopefully will be able to fill the major research gap on land use and climate change effects on food security in Africa.

Dr. Terence Epule Epule
Guest Editor

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• land use
• climate
• precipitation
• temperature
• food security
• crop systems
• deforestation
• urbanization