Opportunities and Needs in Development and Adoption of Urban Agriculture for Food Security in Sub Saharan Africa

This discussion is concerned with food production in urban settings in Sub Saharan Africa. It seeks to highlight the opportunities and needs in development and adoption of urban agriculture for food Security in Sub Saharan Africa. The rapidly growing urban population in the region has tended to drive demographic, social and economic changes leading to the evolution of transformed urban food production systems, as some of the most efficient and sustainable contributors to food production. The food demand will tend to grow faster than its production, resulting in a growing food deficit, thus affecting food insecurity in urban areas. Under the circumstances urbanization will tend to be one of the major socio-economic factors that will drive the increasing demand for both crop and livestock products, due to concentrated and rapidly increasing urban population. It is therefore hoped that strategies to promote food productivity gains, should focus on setting up good infrastructure, appropriate agricultural policies and adoption of new technology approaches. Incentive to urban farmers credited by functioning in a policy environment fair to urban producers will also increase urban food production. There is need to understand the critical facets of agricultural production dynamics and the diversity of its underlying factors in order to improve food production in urban settings in Sub Saharan Africa