Addressing future food demand in The Gambia: can increased crop productivity and climate change adaptation close the supply-demand gap?

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.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12571-024-01444-1.

Keywords: Climate change adaptation; Crop productivity; Diets; Food imports; Food security; Food system model.

Fig. 1

Food demand, food production and food imports in The Gambia as recorded by FAO (a) from 1980 to 2015 and projected using FABLE (b) from 2015 to 2050. Projected food production and food imports represent the target needed to meet food demand. Discrepancies between total food demand and the sum of production and import volumes arise due to factors such as exports, food waste and losses, unaccounted informal trade, stock variations, non-food uses and statistical discrepancies in FAO Food Balance Sheets. The projections include an uncertainty range due to the different SSP population growth scenarios represented by the shading. The projected change in food demand, production target, and import target for all major food groups can be seen in Figs. S5 to S7

Fig. 2

a Production growth required to meet food demand between 2020 and 2050 for the ten food products with the highest projected absolute increase. b Increase in imports required to meet food demand between 2020 and 2050 for the ten food products with the highest projected absolute increase

Fig. 3

Feasible food production in The Gambia from 2010 to 2050 under business-as-usual field management under the RCP scenarios RCP 2.6 (a) and RCP 6.0 (b). Each trend line represents the average projected impact of climate change on food production. The shaded area indicates the uncertainty ranges due to the productivity effect of increased levels of CO₂ (carbon fertilisation)

Fig. 4

Feasible food production for domestic consumption and exports on current cropland under different crop productivity scenarios in 2030 (a) and 2050 (b). Crop productivity scenarios include business-as-usual (BAU), climate change adaptation (CCA), agricultural intensification (Boost), and a combination of both (CCA & Boost). Error bars indicate the variation between food production simulated under the RCP2.6 scenario and simulated under the RCP 6.0 scenario. The dashed line represents the target of domestic food production required to meet food demand for both domestic consumption and exports. The coloured products include the most produced food products in The Gambia. The projected changes in feasible food production for all major food groups can be seen in Fig. S8

Fig. 5

a Shortfall of food supply for domestic consumption (%), expressed as the gap between the food production target to meet food demand and the feasible food production in 2030 and 2050 under the business-as-usual scenario. b Additional food production on current cropland (%) estimated under different scenarios to increase crop productivity, including climate change adaptation (CCA), agricultural intensification (Boost), and a combination of both (CCA & Boost)

Fig. 6

Change in the area of cultivated land required to meet food demand under different crop productivity scenarios from 2015–2050. Crop productivity scenarios include business-as-usual (BAU), climate change adaptation (CCA), agricultural intensification (Boost), and a combination of both (CCA & Boost). The dashed line represents the total area of The Gambia