Rural-urban land and food system changes in West Africa

Kira Fastner; Kofi Yeboah Asare; Andreas Buerkert

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2025.114007

Rural-urban land and food system changes in West Africa

iScience. 2025 Nov 12;28(12):114007. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.114007. eCollection 2025 Dec 19.

Authors

Kira Fastner¹, Kofi Yeboah Asare², Andreas Buerkert¹

Affiliations

¹ Organic Plant Production and Agroecosystems Research in the Tropics and Subtropics, Organic Agricultural Sciences, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen, Germany.
² School for Development Studies, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.

Abstract

West Africa's land and food systems are increasingly reshaped by the effects of urbanization and trade liberalization. This study aims at quantifying changes in food production and consumption patterns along selected rural-urban transects in Niger and Ghana over the past 20 years. Remote sensing analyses of cropland changes were combined with data on food flows and household surveys. Our findings indicate that rapid urban growth and rural market integration in West Africa are driving distinct, location-specific transformations. Niger's land and food systems are increasingly linked to major West African coastal cities through growing intra-regional trade. This is leading to the expansion of cropland and rising consumption of imported products. In rural and peri-urban Accra, Ghana, the ongoing conversion of cropland to built-up areas is challenging food access and security. To enhance food system resilience, multidirectional dependencies between cities and their nearby and distant rural hinterlands must be recognized and addressed.

Keywords: Agricultural land; Earth sciences; Food policy; Land use; Remote sensing.