Change in crop management strategies could double the maize yield in Africa
Change in cropping practices is required to address the food security issues in Africa. Yet, testing of the performance of such changes, in particular at large scales, often needs significant investments. Crop models are widely used tools to quantify the effects of agronomic decisions on cropping systems and to identify the most promising areas for their advancement and implementation. This study quantify the impacts of individual and combined change in management scenarios including changes in rates of nitrogen application, supplementary irrigation and new cultivar (with higher radiation use efficiency) on maize cropping systems over Africa based on 30 years (1980-2010) of climate, soil and management information obtained from global datasets at 0.5° x 0.5° spatial resolution.