National food production cannot address nutrient gaps in African countries

Abstract

This study quantifies nine key nutrient gaps by comparing national demand and domestic production in each of Africa’s 54 countries. While different countries exhibited varying degrees of nutrient gaps for different nutrients, all countries were deficient in at least one nutrient, with eight being deficient in all nutrients. Based on current agricultural productivity, only seven African nations would be able to satisfy their nutrient gaps through production expansion given water and land constraints.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Feukam Nzudie, H.L. Zhao, X. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7461-852X Tian, P. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0465-4098 He, P. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1088-6290 Zhang, X. Hamad, A.A. Tillotson, M.R. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3362-021X Onah, I. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3581-8756 Chen, S. Zhong, H. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1236-6037 Feng, K. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5139-444X Zhang, N. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5634-4203
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	This is an author produced version of an article published in Nature Food, made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Dates:	Accepted: 12 September 2025 Published (online): 16 October 2025 Published: 16 October 2025
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Civil Engineering (Leeds)
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2025 08:32
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2025 08:33
Published Version:	https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01246-4
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Identification Number:	10.1038/s43016-025-01246-4
Related URLs:	PubMed URL Dataset Dataset Dataset Dataset
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:233239