Nigerian cropland expansion
Photos courtesy of Bhoktear Khan January 15, 2025
UD study shows cropland expansion in Nigeria doesn’t equate to increased food security
In Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is wreaking havoc on agricultural systems. The growing frequency and intensity of climate anomalies has led to reduced crop yields, production instability and cropping pattern migrations. At the same time, there is the need to feed a growing population, and to accomplish this goal, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced an expansion in cropland, which often comes at the expense of forests.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, about 90% of the deforested area has been converted to cropland within five years of forest loss. While this cropland expansion has allowed for individual farmers to grow greater amounts of certain crops, a study from the University of Delaware shows that it does not necessarily lead to more food security or increased nutrition.
The study was published in Science Advances and led by Bhoktear Khan, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, and Kyle Davis, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences and the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, as well as a resident faculty member with UD’s Data Science Institute.
Farmers in Nigeria are vulnerable to climate change because they mostly utilize rain-fed agriculture, with 90% of cropland in Nigeria used by smallholder farmers. Because of this, the farmers are exposed to any changing environmental and climate conditions, forcing them to work with whatever temperatures and precipitation nature dictates. If they can no longer grow the same amount of crop on a certain piece of land, they are pressured to expand their cropping area.
One way to do this is through deforestation. From 2000 to 2022, the researchers found that almost 47% of forest cover was lost in Nigeria.
Khan said when forests are cut down, not only is Nigeria losing a valuable environmental resource, but citizens are also losing an area that provides a lot of resources.
“The forest is not just a bunch of trees. It also provides resources for the local communities because when it is a public forest, people can go in and collect fruits or legumes or game,” Khan said. “When you’re clearing the forest, it’s not just making cropland — local communities are also losing those precious resources.”
To connect the deforested areas and cropland expansion with the impact on dietary diversity, the researchers used georeferenced household survey data from a 2018 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey. They looked at a metric known as child diet diversity, a proxy of nutritional adequacy, that considers how many of 10 food groups are consumed over a 24-hour period at a household level.
“What we found is that in the areas that cropland expansion is going on, there is no significant change to dietary diversity,” Khan said. “That means, even if you’re getting a lot of cropland at the cost of forest, ultimately, that is not improving your overall dietary diversity.”
Davis said if deforestation were happening and leading to improved dietary diversity, perhaps it could be seen as an adequate trade-off.
“Expanding cropland into forests, that’s obviously not good from a biodiversity perspective because forests are great at supporting all kinds of species, but if it’s leading to improved food security, nutrition and diets in those areas, then maybe it’s an acceptable trade off,” Davis said. “Maybe you’re cutting down forests, but more people are fed adequately. However, Bhoktear basically found that the expanded cropland doesn’t compensate for the dietary benefits that the forests offer for those communities.”
Still, Khan cautioned against blaming the farmers, who are forced to make decisions that will immediately benefit them and their families in the face of climate change. He said it is important to find a solution to compensate the farmers to lessen the amount of deforestation while also ensuring they are still achieving adequate crop production.
Khan also said because climate change isn’t confined by national boundaries, the results of this study can be applied to other Sub-Saharan African countries where smallholder farming dominates and that are experiencing similar problems with regard to food security.
“Our goal is to see a general trend that can help policymakers in terms of how they choose to preserve the environmental resource of the forest and ensure food for the local communities. In that way, everyone will be happy,” Khan said. “Nigeria is at a junction where they can choose a lot of different options and based on what options they choose, they will determine their future in terms of sustainability, saving the environment and at the same time, ensuring there is enough food for the local people.”
Other current and former members of Davis’ lab group involved in the study include Piyush Mehta (Ph.D. 2024), Dongyang Wei (Ph.D. 2024), Hanan Abou Ali and John Uponi.
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