Abstract

Food safety, and security remains a major concern in developing nations. Groundnuts rank the second globally in oil seed production after soya beans and the 11th most important crop for human intake. Limited productivity against the potential of existing crops due to biotic, abiotic, market, and policy factors causes the poor food production trends. This work uses a systematic review approach to determine the productivity of groundnut as a major food crop in Africa for the last 10 years based on the trend of declining yields of groundnut in this duration, and the role of influencing factors. The extracted data is summarized creating a feasible proposal on how the productivity, and quality of the crop could be improved to meet the food security need. Among the top 11 producers of groundnuts in Africa, West Africa accounts for 55% with regions like Nigeria, and Senegal having the highest productivity of 3.3 t, and 1.1 t respectively over the last ten years. In East Africa, Sudan has the highest production of 2.04 t over the 10 years. Despite being the second continent in the size of area under production of groundnut, Africa has the lowest average yields per hectare (1 t/ha), compared to America (3 t/ha), and Asia (1.8 t/ha). Regions that used improved varieties had higher yield than those using local varieties, and less technologies. High disease infestation shows a direct correlation with declining yields of groundnut. Therefore, the low productivity of groundnuts could be associated with social, cultural, and economic factors that create disparities in accessing improved technologies, farming, production and marketing resources. Development of improved varieties and policies in the region that support improved agronomic inputs are feasible practices for attaining cultivars that resist the yield, and quality limiting parameters.

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