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Extreme climate change is posing an increasing threat to human welfare across countries. Specifically, the devastating floods coupled with the looming spectre of drought are argued to explain cross-country differences in food security. While the debate continues and uncertainties about the precise influence of climate change on food security linger, the question of whether climate change plays a pivotal role in increased hunger and food insecurity across countries remains unanswered. This study presented new evidence of the role of climate change in Africa's food security. We utilised the Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope estimator to analyse climate change trends. We also employed the pooled mean group technique and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test to investigate the effect of climate change on food security in 15 African countries between 1970 and 2016. Our empirical findings revealed three things. First, rainfall plays a decisive role in Africa's food security when examined broadly. However, the significance of the effect of rainfall varied substantially across the 15 countries. Second, we find no robust impact of temperature on food security in the long run. However, the short-run results showed that extreme temperatures impede food security, with varying magnitudes across countries. Third, except for rainfall, a bidirectional causality exists between food security and temperature in Africa. Given the risks associated with rain-fed agriculture, we argue that African countries need to limit their dependence on rain-fed agriculture to boost food production.

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This study assessed smallholder farmers’ perceptions, adaptation constraints, and determinants of adaptive capacity to climate change. The study used severity and problem confrontation index estimations to examine the farmers’ perceptions of climate warming and barriers to climate adaptation. The results indicated that the farmers were cognizant of climate change and its adverse impacts on their livelihood. It was evident that most surveyed rice farmers perceived changes in climatic conditions to affect rice production adversely. The farmers claimed that unpredictable weather conditions, limited farm size, inadequate farm labor, scarce water resources, high cost of farm inputs, and insufficient information on weather conditions had impeded their adoption of climate change adaptive strategies. Based on the results of the principal component analysis, economic resources, physical resources, information, human resources, and technology significantly influence smallholder farmers’ responsive ability to climate warming. Therefore, policymakers must design policy frameworks and measures that consider these significant factors explaining farmers’ constraints to climate change adaptation.