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Addressing future food demand in The Gambia: can increased crop productivity and climate change adaptation close the supply–demand gap?
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Abstract
With rising demand for food and the threats posed by climate change, The Gambia faces significant challenges in ensuring sufficient and nutritious food for its population. To address these challenges, there is a need to increase domestic food production while limiting deforestation and land degradation. In this study, we modified the FABLE Calculator, a food and land-use system model, to focus on The Gambia to simulate scenarios for future food demand and increasing domestic food production. We considered the impacts of climate change on crops, the adoption of climate change adaptation techniques, as well as the potential of enhanced fertiliser use and irrigation to boost crop productivity, and assessed whether these measures would be sufficient to meet the projected increase in food demand. Our results indicate that domestic food production on existing cropland will not be sufficient to meet national food demand by 2050, leading to a significant supply–demand gap. However, investments in fertiliser availability and the development of sustainable irrigation infrastructure, coupled with climate change adaptation strategies like the adoption of climate-resilient crop varieties and optimised planting dates, could halve this gap. Addressing the remaining gap will require additional strategies, such as increasing imports, expanding cropland, or prioritising the production of domestic food crops over export crops. Given the critical role imports play in The Gambia’s food supply, it is essential to ensure a robust flow of food imports by diversifying partners and addressing regional trade barriers. Our study highlights the urgent need for sustained investment and policy support to enhance domestic food production and food imports to secure sufficient and healthy food supplies amidst growing demand and climate change challenges.
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Author and article information
Contributors
Dr Tony Carr is a Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
(LSHTM). His research focuses on the links between agriculture, the environment, and
health. Prior to joining LSHTM, he completed his PhD at University College London
on the impacts of soil degradation and climate change on global cereal production.
Dr Felicity Addo is a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis. Her current scientific interests include examining food security
pathways in developing countries and micro-econometric modelling of agricultural production
systems applied to i) farm efficiency, competitiveness, and performance, ii) agricultural
policies and iii) farmers’ input use, costs, and investment decisions. Currently,
she contributes to multiple projects in the EU and Africa.
Amanda Palazzo (Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis (IIASA)) is one of the main developers of the partial-equilibrium model Global
Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM). Her main topics of research concern participatory
approaches to develop and model plausible regional future scenarios of food security
and agricultural development, the representation of the water-energy-land nexus in
economic modelling including impacts of climate change and growing sectoral demands
(agriculture, domestic, energy, and environment), and assessing the impacts of investments
in irrigation infrastructure. She has also worked extensively in stakeholder engagement
to link qualitative and quantitative scenarios and modelling tools.
Dr Petr Havlik (Deputy Program Director, Ecosystem Services and Management, IIASA)
oversees the use of EPIC and GLOBIOM models developed at IIASA to fit the data specific
to The Gambia. He coordinates the instituteʼs contributions to global land use related
foresight and assessment activities with European Commission funded research projects,
and with international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),
and the World Bank. At the national level, Havlik coordinates the contribution to
policies and regulatory processes in, among others, China, the European Union, Indonesia,
and the USA. While working at IIASA, he also held a three-year joint position with
the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
Dr Katya Perez Guzman is a research scholar the IIASA Strategic Initiatives Program.
Her main interest is to develop and promote quantitative scientific instruments to
inform public policy on climate change in Mexico. Perez Guzman supported the IIASA
Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy (FABLE) project from 2019–2021,
as part of the larger Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) initiative. This crystallized
her experience within a global consortium of climate change policy and research network,
where she helps stakeholders to model, analyze, and better understand the different
future policy scenarios of land use, food, and agriculture systems. Her main responsibility
was supporting capacity building and the development of the FABLE calculator, an Excel
based model that performs integrated analysis of the nexus between land use, food,
and agriculture systems, with inclusion of biodiversity, climate change, and water
criteria.
Dr Zakari Ali is a Research fellow at the MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School
of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) based in The Gambia – working on the FACE-Africa
project. Zakari’s research focuses on mapping the Gambian food system and its adaptations
to climate change using existing secondary data sources. He works closely with the
Gambian food system stakeholders including government ministries and departments,
NGOs, researchers, local farmers and climate interest groups to co-create evidence
that is locally relevant for policy and adaptation to climate change. Zakari has MSc
in Nutrition for Global Health from LSHTM and previously worked for two years as a
Research Assistant in Ghana with the University for Development Studies where he worked
on maternal, child and adolescent nutrition research.
Dr Rosie Green is a Professor in Sustainability, Nutrition and Health at the London
School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The focus of her work is on the links between
nutrition, environment and health, particularly identifying dietary changes that would
be positive for human health and the planet. She is a co-PI on the FACE-Africa and
Pathfinder projects, and also works on the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS)
project, the AMPHoRA project exploring air pollution from agriculture in the UK and
the South Asia Nitrogen Hub investigating health impacts of reducing nitrogen pollution
from agriculture.
Genevieve Hadida joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as a Research
Assistant in 2021, having completed an MSc in Nutrition for Global Health at the school.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of food systems, nutrition and sustainability.
Her work has focused on analysing The Gambia’s trade of crops, particularly the climate
vulnerability of its imports.
Dr Alcade Segnon is a Postdoctoral Scientist at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate
Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), based at ICRISAT in Bamako, Mali. Alcade’s
research interest is the intersection of climate change adaptation, agrobiodiversity
and traditional knowledge systems; and agroecosystem sustainability. He is particularly
interested in how and to what extent agrobiodiversity and knowledge that local people
share on it can be used to improve smallholders' livelihoods and resilience to environmental
change. Alcade’s research also includes assessing adaptation effectiveness to inform
policy decision making across scales. Dr Segnon is involved in the Global Adaptation
Mapping Initiative (GAMI) and is a Contributing Author of the IPCC’s sixth Assessment
Report, WGII.
As the CCAFS Africa Program leader since 2010, I have been defining and overseeing
strategic directions for CCAFS research in the region and therefore, coordinating
actions that lead to coherent implementation of the regional activities from the participating
CGIAR Centres and other regional and national partners. One of my major tasks is to
communicating regional research outputs and strategy through innovative means. Under
my leadership, CCAFS action research was conducted at all levels in a way to generate
scientific information that inform top-down and bottom-up decision-making processes
on climate change, agriculture and food security.
Dr Pauline Scheelbeek is an Associate Professor in nutritional and environmental
epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Pauline’s research
focusses on quantifying the impact of changing environments on agriculture, food availability
and quality, nutrition, and health. Currently she is the health lead for the multi-country
Sustainable and Health Food Systems (SHEFS) project and leads (together with Dr Rosemary
Green) the Food system Adaptations in Changing Environments in Africa (FACE-Africa)
project in the Gambia. In this context she models future food systems for the UK,
South Africa and India under several climate change and adaptation scenarios. Pauline
is an active STEM ambassador and frequently organises public engagement activities
for school aged children in the UK and sub-Saharan Africa around environment, nutrition
and health issues.
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