Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) land use changes are primarily influenced by agriculture and its population. The region faces various challenges ranging from rainfall variabilities to poverty and insecurities, which further hampered food supply and production. The spatial analysis identified six land uses—agriculture, forest, grassland, wetland, urban, and others (i.e., bare land, water, and sparse vegetation), showing relative percentage changes. Additionally, information collected and analyzed shows that the Millennium Development Goals period witnessed increased agricultural land use changes in the environment to improve food supply, and farmers adopted local methods and native experiences to mitigate environmental particularities facing the region. Farmers’ landholdings are fragmented, and food supply per capita is low albeit rich in calories, and nutrition is still unbalanced, while bushmeat consumption is popular and serves as an alternative to animal-sourced protein. Concerted efforts should be made to improve food security and edge closer to the sustainable development goal during this decade.
Highlights
The search was based on keyword search, and papers were reviewed by reading the introduction and conclusion, and critical evaluation of the selected article
Sub-Saharan Africa is engaged in agriculture as a major means of sustenance, and most of the farmers fall below the low-income quantile or are considered poor because of the subsistence nature of their agricultural practice
Population increase and an influx of migrants in southern Burkina Faso led to more conversion of forest land covers to croplands [34]; the cropland area in northeastern Kita in Mali increased from 8500 ha in 1976 to 25,000 ha in 2003 and due to their intensification of farming, the fallow periods have reduced [35]
Summary
Africa relies on agriculture for sustenance, which is the largest employer of labor mostly of its rural population, contributing to the gross domestic product of most countries in the region as well as, the extractive industry [1]. The expansion of land for agriculture has been ongoing in sub-Saharan Africa, and which became expedient due to population growth, per capita income, and food demand [2,3]. There is no gainsaying that the unsustainable manner of farming practice and land uses contributed to the environmental degradation as the luxuriant land cover of Africa’s landscape has shown changes over the years due to anthropogenic activities in the bid of exploring its ecosystem for food and nonfood products [4]. A further breakdown shows 1% of Africa’s rural land area contains 21% of its rural population, while
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