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While agricultural productivity has increased in Africa south of the Sahara in recent years, it remains far below productivity in other developing regions, and this gap is only increasing, according to a new book released by IFPRI’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) program this week. This low productivity has undermined the competitiveness of Africa’s agricultural sector both at home and abroad and could exacerbate both poverty and food insecurity in the region due to a growing reliance on increasingly expensive food imports.

IFPRI’s “Stories of Change in Nutrition” series of publications examines evidence from countries with high burdens of malnutrition in order to better understand how nutrition policies are made and how these policies are implemented on the ground. In Africa south of the Sahara, the series thus far covers Ethiopia , Zambia , and Senegal .

Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an El Niño-induced drought for more than a year, placing as many as 4.5 million people in food insecurity throughout the country, according to a recent Reuters article . The prolonged poor weather conditions mean that the upcoming dry season – September and October – is likely to be worse than normal, placing even more pressure on already strained local water supplies.

In recent years, a combination of increased food prices, slowing agricultural growth, and a rapidly rising population have put pressure on Nigeria’s domestic food security. According to IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP), the average share of income spent on food within the country rose from 45 percent in 2007 to 80 percent in 2008 as a result of the global spike in food prices.

Several new country briefs for Africa south of the Sahara have recently been released by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning Systems (GIEWS). The GIEWS country brief series provides an overview of the food security situation in prioritized countries, focusing on the current agricultural season, harvest prospects for staple food crops and livestock, estimates and forecasts of cereal production, and food price and food policy trends.