Land use transformation in Africa: three determinants for balancing food security with natural resource utilization

The continued threat to the world's land resources is exacerbated by the protracted food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Per capita food production continues to decrease even though this region compares favorably with other tropical regions in terms of climate and soil resources. The main determinant of this situation is the widely recognized need for an enabling policy environment that favors smallholder rural development. However, there are two other key determinants to food security and environmental sustainability in Africa that have not received sufficient attention in the past and are the focus of this contribution: (1) the need to tackle soil fertility depletion as the fundamental biophysical constraint to food security and (2) the need for more intensive and diverse land use, based on the domestication of indigenous trees to produce high value products while increasing agroecosystem resilience. Approaches that include these three issues will transform smallholder farming in Africa into productive and sustainable enterprises and will contribute greatly to food security and environmental conservation, in a win-win situation

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-519X(97)80004-9

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