Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa: Focusing on Small-Scale Farmers

Abstract

Food and nutrition security has become an important policy agenda in the international community. Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to end hunger, achieve food and nutrition security, and promote sustainable agriculture. However, this goal will likely be challenged by emerging risks such as climate change in many developing countries. The Six Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that climate change will affect food security, especially in Africa, since the majority in the rural areas are rainfed small-scale farmers who are directly affected by climate change. Thus, policy intervention is urgently required to build climate resilience in the agricultural sector. To envision nutrition-sensitive agricultural production and consumption system, we first need to understand i) how farmers manage climate risks? ii) What technical options enhance farmers’ food and nutrition security? This paper tries to present some current evidence regarding those links in the literature, provide some empirical evidence on small-scale farmers in one of the drought-prone areas in southern Zambia, and envision the future direction of research.