Tropentag, September 16 - 18, 2026, Göttingen "Towards multi-functional agro-ecosystems promoting climate-resilient futures"

Impacts of climate change on cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa: Knowledge gaps and research priorities

¹Leibniz Centre for Agric. Landscape Res. (ZALF), Integrated crop production systems analysis, Germany
²Technical University of Munich, School of Life Sciences, Germany
³University of Ghana, School of Agriculture, Ghana
⁴University of Sine Saloum El-Hâdj Ibrahima NIASS, Senegal
⁵Justus Liebig University Giessen, Inst. of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Germany
⁶Hochschule Geisenheim University, Dept. of Applied Ecology, Germany
⁷Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
⁸Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany

Abstract

Background: Crop productivity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) must increase to sustain food security and farmer livelihoods. However, climate change is likely to make this more difficult by intensifying drought and heat stress through rising temperatures greater rainfall variability, and more frequent extreme events, many cropping systems in SSA operate under nutrient-limited conditions, which are often insufficiently considered in impact assessments. Here, we review the current empirical evidence on climate change impacts in key annual arable food- crop systems in SSA. We examine the climate drivers studied, the performance dimensions assessed, and the adequacy of existing approaches for supporting future climate impact assessments.
Methods: A systematic literature was conducted using a structured search in Web of Science and Scopus, complemented by reference tracking. From 1,204 records initially identified, we conducted title and abstract screening, and the full-text screening based on defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these, 182 studies were finally included in the evidence synthesis.
Results: Research on climate impacts under nutrient-limited conditions is largely concentrated outside SSA, and more than 90% of the studies focus primarily on single climate stressor. Within SSA, research has predominantly focused on drought and water stress and nitrogen limitation, with most studies conducted on maize under field experimental conditions. Most studies assessed crop production, particularly yield and physiology, whereas environmental outcomes, biodiversity, soil processes, and broader system responses were rarely considered. In SSA, important food security crops and elevated CO₂ remain understudied. Globally, relatively only 40 studies examine how climatic interactions with nutrient limitation beyond nitrogen.
Implication and outlook: These patterns suggest that current evidence is too narrow to support robust climate impact assessment across SSA cropping systems. Progress will require more coordinated studies in SSA that test climate stress together with nutrient limitations and management options. Future assessments should move towards multi-criteria assessment of cropping system performance. Further model improvement will depend on SSA-based evidence from both targeted experiments and on-farm monitoring. Combining process-based models with machine learning could help integrate diverse field data, identify key stress interactions, and improve model calibration and scaling to support future sustainable intensification strategies in SSA.

Keywords: Climate stress, cropping systems, nutrient limitation, sustainable intensification

Contact Address: Heidi Webber, Leibniz Centre for Agric. Landscape Res. (ZALF), Agricultural Landscape Systems, Müncheberg, Germany, e-mail: webberzalf.de