Exploring Links Between Climate Extremes, Cropland Expansion, and Nutrition in Nigeria

Climate change poses multiple threats to agriculture and food security in Nigeria - Africa's most populous country and largest food producers. Recent global work suggests that one way farmers are offsetting the effects of adverse climate anomalies is through cropland expansion. Yet it remains unclear whether such climate-associated land use changes benefit the diets and nutrition of local communities. Here we present a quantitative assessment of the associations between climate anomalies, forest loss due to cropland expansion, and dietary outcomes in Nigeria. We focus on southern Nigeria where more than 95% of the country's remaining forests occur. We first combine high-resolution gridded data on annual forest cover and climatic variables within a random forest model to determine the relationship between climatic variables and forest loss. We then use demographic and dietary data to assess whether this newly created cropland (via forest loss) is associated with improvements in dietary diversity and nutrition-related health outcomes (e.g., stunting, wasting) in proximate areas. In this way, we seek to provide a much needed multidimensional view of cropland expansion and forest loss in Nigeria by evaluating whether it has led to other benefits. More broadly, this study can offer insights into the emergence of critical trade-offs between nutritional and environmental outcomes related to the sustainability of food systems.