Building resilient and equitable farming practices to address food insecurity amid climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review

Abstract

Food insecurity remains high in Africa, with about 307 million people, corresponding to 20.2 per cent affected by hunger in 2024. Climate change is a major driver of food insecurity in SSA, as most smallholder farmers rely on rainfed agriculture. This scoping review synthesises the existing evidence on resilience and equitable farming practices employed by smallholder farmers to address food insecurity amid climate change in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) protocols, the Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar were used to select 40 relevant articles published between 2010 and 2025 to address the central research question. Findings show that the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs), such as soil and water conservation, mulching, drought-resistant crops, zero tillage, crop diversification, and agroforestry, is the main climate adaptation strategy employed by smallholder farmers in SSA. Nevertheless, the adoption of resilient and equitable farming practices is affected by individual factors, household-level factors, institutional-level factors and structural factors. The study highlights the need to scale up CSAPs to help smallholder farmers build resilient, equitable farming practices to address food insecurity amid climate change. The study contributes knowledge that may inform progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDGs 2 and 13.