ABSTRACT
In 40 years, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double in size to 1,680 million people (UN 2009). The daunting challenge of meeting the food demands of an additional 840 million consumers in 2050 will be further complicated by stresses induced by climate change. Low productivity, the high incidence of poverty, and missing markets for inputs, seeds, irrigation, credit, land, labor, and crop insurance all limit the capacity of African farmers to deal with the food demands of the future in the face of a changing climate. To compound matters further, land clearing for agriculture has almost completely eliminated the West African Guinea Rainforest and is on track to do the same in the Congo basin. Deforestation and forest degradation associated with land preparation for agriculture are the largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and species extinction in Africa (Canadell et al. 2009).
