Scientific evidence is crucial for the transition towards sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. However, sustainability transitions research has been so far north-biased and overlooked the Global South. This paper analyses the scholarly literature on sustainability transitions in West African agriculture and food systems. In particular, it investigates the bibliometrics and geographical coverage of the research field and explores whether and how it addresses topics such as transition frameworks, niches, food security and sustainability.

This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises.

Soil and water conservation technologies are critical in reducing drought and soil erosion risks and increasing crop yields and incomes. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence on the extent and impacts of adopting soil and water conservation technologies in Tanzania. The study’s objective is to evaluate the adoption (as well as the duration of adoption) and the impacts of soil and water conservation technologies on income and food security in Tanzania.

Strengthening the production and processing of key food commodities forms the basis of agricultural development in Africa. These value chains follow a quasi-linear progression across seven main segments: farm planning > land preparation and crop establishment > field production > harvest > post-harvest handling > marketing > and value addition. Each of these consists of sub-segments whose improvement depends upon promotion and adoption of specific modernizing technologies.

During the last decade, post-harvest losses (PHL) reduction has been topping the agenda of governments as a pathway for addressing food security, poverty, and nutrition challenges in Africa. Using survey data from 579 households, we investigated the factors that affect farmers’ decisions to adopt post-harvest technologies: mechanized shelling, drying tarpaulins, and airtight storage validated for reducing PHL in Tanzania’s maize-based systems, and the impacts on households’ food security and welfare.

A 3-year field experiment was setup to address the threat of underground water depletion and sustainability of agrifood systems. Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system combined with nitrogen management under conservation agriculture-based (CA) maize-wheat system (MWS) effects on crop yields, irrigation water productivity (WPi), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and profitability. Grain yields of maize, wheat, and MWS in the SDI with 100% recommended N were significantly higher by 15.8%, 5.2% and 11.2%, respectively, than conventional furrow/flood irrigation (CT-FI) system.

Livestock are a critically important component of the food system, although the sector needs a profound transformation to ensure that it contributes to a rapid transition towards sustainable food systems. This chapter reviews and synthesises the evidence available on changes in demand for livestock products in the last few decades, and the multiple socio-economic roles that livestock have around the world. We also describe the nutrition, health, and environmental impacts for which the sector is responsible.

The highlands of North Shoa in Amhara region are dominated by cereals (wheat, barley and tef) followed by food legumes. The productivity of cereals and food legumes is low due to biotic and abiotic factors as well as insufficient input supplies like certified seed, inoculants, and other inputs. Because of diseases and insect pests, acidity and water logging problems, farmers are reducing areas of food legumes and growing more cereals leading to low crop diversity leading to reduced soil fertility, incomes, and food diversity.

The evidence base for the effectiveness of gender-transformative approaches (GTAs) in agriculture and food system interventions is small and weak, and many studies do not focus on specifically evaluating these approaches and methods.
While the very limited quantitative evidence suggests that interventions that integrate GTAs have weak or no effects on many outcomes for women’s empowerment outcomes (including gender norms), qualitative evidence shows that, in some instances, shifts in gender roles could eventually lead to change in gender norms.