Common foods of Khulungira village, in central Malawi: Nsomba zophika (fish stew), chimanga chophika (boiled maize), nyemba zophika (mixed beans with salt and oil), bowa wofutsa (dried mushrooms with ground groundnuts), nkhwani wophatikiza ndi maungu anthete ndi kachewere wophika (pumpkin leaves, pumpkin blossoms and potatoes) and mazira ophika ndi phwetekere, anyezi, mafuta ndi mchere (boiled eggs with tomato, onions, oil and salt) (photo credit: CGIAR/Mann).

A unique dataset covering land use and production data by more than 13,000 smallholder farm households in 93 sites in 17 countries across sub-Saharan Africa is described in a paper recently published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).Mark van Wijk, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), led the study with other colleagues from ILRI and partner institutions. Excerpts from the paper, and its key messages, follow.

‘We calculated a simple indicator of food…