42nd Ralph Melville Memorial Lecture

The 2025 lecture was delivered by Ken Giller, Emeritus Professor in the Plant Production Systems group at Wageningen University. It took place at the Farmer’s Club in London on 17th June.

Achieving Future Food Security in Africa – in an Increasingly Turbulent World

Summary

Africa is on the rise. The population of Africa has grown from 0.28 billion in 1960 to 1.46 billion in 2023 – almost a six-fold increase. Despite the rich history of agricultural research, agricultural productivity stalled in the 1980s, and the burgeoning population has been fed largely by the expansion of the area of cropland. By 2050, an extra billion people will be added to Africa’s population, and the continent will be home to a quarter of the world’s population. The large crop ‘yield gaps’ between current and potential productivity are both a threat and an opportunity to future food security.

As Africa shifts from a relatively sparsely populated continent to a new condition of land scarcity, will this trigger a long-sought-after agricultural revolution? Rapid urbanization and changes in consumption patterns are creating new markets for farmers. Yet climate change, political conflict and the withdrawal of development funding create new challenges and uncertainties. What are the prospects to achieve food security in Africa in this increasingly turbulent world? What role can international agricultural research and development play? I will introduce these critical and thorny questions for discussion, together with suggestions for action.

Ken Giller is Emeritus Professor in the Plant Production Systems group at Wageningen University where he led an internationally-recognised group of
researchers applying systems approaches in agriculture for more than 20 years. Ken’s research has focused on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular problems of soil fertility and the role of nitrogen fixation in tropical legumes. He has led a number of initiatives such as
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded N2Africa – Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa – http://www.n2africa.org/.

He plays an active role in the Global Food Security Conferences, co-chairing the first in 2012 and as an organizer for many editions. Ken has supervised over 100 PhD students (more than half from Africa) to completion. He has more than 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, more than a hundred book chapters, and has been on the Highly Cited list (top 1% globally) since 2016.

Ken joined Wageningen University as Chair of Plant Production Systems in 2001 after holding professorships at Wye College, University of London, and the University of Zimbabwe. Ken was recognised as TAAI Development Agriculturalist of the Year 2024. His recent writing concerns the future of African food security, including this open-source edited collection of essays: de Haas, M & Giller, K.E. eds. (2025) Pathways to African Food Security: Challenges,
Threats and Opportunities Towards 2050. Routledge: Abingdon and New York. A copy can be downloaded vis this link

A video of the presentation may be viewed below.