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Abstract

Over the past 50 years, Africa has experienced climate change and variability exacerbated by high levels of poverty, unstable political institutions and states, diverse socio-cultural contexts, inadequate market access and a general lack of institutional and infrastructural support. These factors heighten vulnerability, particularly in the agricultural sector where climate change impacts productivity through various processes including diminishing agricultural yields, increase in crop/livestock pests and diseases, land degradation and climate-induced migration.

Despite contributing least to global climate change, Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts (International Panel for Climate Change [IPCC] 2018; Niang et al 2014). Temperature projections indicate that Africa will warm at a faster rate, with a global warming of 1.5 °C and beyond likely being approached by 2040 even under low emission scenarios (Mapfumo et al. 2025). There is a high confidence that heat waves and dry spells will also increase (IPCC 2022; Niang et al 2014). Likewise, projections of percipitation indicate that rainfall changes over Africa in the mid and late twenty-first century will be more uncertain (Muller et al. 2015; Seneviratne et al 2016).

Most of the population in sub-Saharan Africa rely on agriculture and its associated industries for securing their livelihoods. However, agriculture is already negatively affected by climate change extreme events such as drought, leading to lower outputs (Roudier et al 2011; Müller et al. 2015; Serdeczny et al 2017). This represents a challenge because the probable impacts are out of the range of smallholder farmers’ previous experiences thereby increasing vulnerability. Low productivity in the agricultural sector has been associated with factors including low soil fertility, weeds, pests, diseases, low inputs availability, low input use and inappropriate seeds (Lobell et al 2011; Serdeczny et al 2017), accentuated by persistent poverty and socio-economic inequality (Jones and Boyd 2011; Niang et al 2014), low levels of development (Tschakert and Dietrich 2010), high dependence on climate-sensitive livelihood sectors (Dapilah and Nielsen 2020; Niang et al 2014; Lobell et al 2011; Serdeczny et al 2017), governance and institutional challenges (Antwi-Agyei et al 2017; Dapilah et al 2021) leading to low adaptive capacity and a significant adaptation deficit (Berrang-Ford et al 2019; Adger et al 2005).

Despite science and policy advancements, numerous indicators of social and biophysical vulnerability to climate change of African agriculture continue to increase exponentially (Shackleton et al 2015; Dapilah and Nielsen 2020). As the continent gets drier and hotter along with rainfall variability, there is great need for climate-resilient adaptation and mitigation solutions in the agricultural sector in Africa. This Topical Collection provides a selection of papers on interventions that foster adaptation, mitigation and resilience in the agricultural sector in Africa.