A number of industrial crops have been promoted in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to meet a range of policy objectives including economic growth, rural development, agricultural modernization and energy security. The food security impacts of industrial crop production have received extensive policy attention and have been widely discussed in the academic literature. There is, however, an overall lack of a clear understanding of these impacts due to thelarge diversity of industrial crops, and their varied modes of production, expansion areas, and impact mechanisms. This systematic review synthesizes theavailable knowledge on the interface of industrial crops and food security in SSA. In particular we identify key patterns with how different industrial cropsand impact mechanisms are represented and studied in the current literature, and how they intersect to affect food security.

The current literature isfragmented, as most studies focus on single or small subsets of crops and impact mechanisms. Most studies capture mechanisms related to food access andavailability, rather than to food utilization and stability. A clustering analysis identified the main literature clusters that combine mechanisms related to food availability, access to food, and environmental impact. The overall analysis presented in this systematic review allowed us to identify priority policy and practice domains that need to be targeted in order to improve the food security outcomes of industrial crop production in SSA.

Some major staple food crops in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) such as maize and cassava can also be considered as industrial crops in some contexts, as they can have non-food uses (such as for ethanol). However, these other uses are minor for maize as it is by far the main staple food crop across most of SSA. For other staple crops with industrial uses such as cassava, very few papers track the final end use. Hence it is difficult to understand whether these crops are used for industrial uses in a given context. In SSA, industrial crops are essentially cash crops, as they are cultivated overwhelmingly for income generation rather than household use.

We acknowledge that access to land is gender-differentiated in SSA and that equal access to land can have a much more direct effect on food security. However the gendered aspects of land access in national legislations and informal rules across SSA go beyond industrial crops. The reader is referred to other more comprehensive publications on the matter (Doss et al. 2015; FAO 2011).