Editorial: Climate change, land, energy and food security: perspectives from Sub-Saharan Africa

Résumé

aspects of the food security pillars (availability, access, utilization, stability) (FAO 2018b).Given the current food system, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) argues that there about 50% more food should be produced by 2050 to feed the increasing world population (FAO 2018a). However, this will equally increase GHG emissions and other environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity.Several studies reveal that the effects of climate change affect food systems, and food security directly. However, mitigating potentially increases the competition for resources needed for agriculture such as water and land. Responding to climate change through the deployment of land-based technologies for negative emissions based on biomass production would increasingly put pressure on food production and food security through potential competition for land (Mbow et al., 2019) Climate change comes with direct and indirect impacts on the agricultural value chain. Thus, climatic variability is faulted for affecting climate change across all its dimensions namely, access, availability, utilization and stability. This comes with socio-economic implications. The effects cascade from the climate to the ecosystem, the productive domain, to the socio-economic causing a number of cumulative risks. However, exposure to risks serves as a disincentive for investing in production systems, with dire consequences on overall productivity, returns and sustainability (Donkor et al., 2019;Donkor et al., 2022).The net impacts of climate change on food security and nutrition depends on the magnitude of the climate change effects themselves, and on the underlying vulnerabilities of food systems. At each stage of the "cascade of impacts", vulnerabilities exacerbate net impacts (Donkor et al., 20019). In addition, vulnerability can increase over time if systems/households face repeated shocks that steadily erode their asset base and capacity to respond. Authors stress the need to address the peculiarities of climate change on gender by considering the gaps in gender research to engender more innovative solutions. Moreover, food security and sustainable livelihoods can be enhanced when women gain unhindered access to land and involved in decision-making processes (Tantoh et al., 2022). This will go a long way to promote sustainable and productive rural economies. Effective adaptation to climate change is knowledge intensive. Authors opine on the essence of integrating indigenous knowledge systems coupled with seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs) to make informed farming decisions. In addition, the improved governance of natural resources and harnessing of the natural infrastructure will help reinforce climate resilience as well as facilitate the sustainable development of developing countries especially.The outcomes of this special issue highlight and help raise awareness that climate change is worsening food insecurity and poor nutrition of the most vulnerable. The findings and recommendations therein will help in addressing climate change which is undermining progress towards the eradication of hunger and malnutrition. This evidence, further reinforce measures towards climate change across sectors. The outcomes have also shown some of the pathways and requisite actions for addressing the impacts of climatic change on food. The insights shared from the technical to the social will help stakeholders to be well grounded in their interventions. Moreover, this special issue contributes to the debate on addressing climate change's impact on energy and the consequences on food security and nutrition.

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