West Africa is the westernmost region of Africa and comprises 16 countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo, as well as the islands of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a United Kingdom Overseas Territory.

This region has a rich ecology with meaningful biodiversity across various territories. The climate is shaped by the dry Sahara to the north and east, which produces the Harmattan winds, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west, which brings seasonal monsoons. This creates a range of biomes, from tropical forests to drylands, supporting a wide variety of wild animal species.

However, West Africa’s environment faces major threats due to deforestation and a loss of biodiversity, as well as overfishing, mining pollution, plastics, and climate change.

Agriculture

West Africa consists of a variety of ecosystems and food production systems. As the basic driver of the region’s economy, many people rely on it for their livelihood, even though most farms typically comprise only one to five hectares. The size of these small-scale farms is an indication of the scarcity of land, and rural households’ access to limited technology.

The region’s agriculture ranges from nomadic pastoralism in the far north to root-crop and tree-crop systems in the south.

Crop-producing areas are roughly horizontal belts such as bioclimatic zones, namely the Saharan, Sahelian, Sudanese, Guinean, and Guineo-Congolian zones. Agriculture in these zones differs and influences the cuisine of countries in these zones.

Saharan region

The Sahara, or Saharan Region, formed by the Sahara Desert, stretches across the whole northern extent of West Africa. It consists of a variety of arid landscapes with sandy sheets and dune fields to gravel plains, low plateaus and rugged mountains. Vegetation is sparse to absent, except in depressions, wadis and oases, where water is present at or just below the surface. Average annual rainfall ranges from 0 to 150 mm per year.

The Guinean region is generally defined by average annual rainfall of between 1 200 and 2 200 mm and seasonally wet-and-dry deciduous or semi-deciduous forest. (Source: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33595).

Sahelian region

The Sahel, or Sahelian Region, is a broad 350 km wide semiarid belt that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to Sudan and the Red Sea. It has a dry season of eight to nine months, and the variable average annual rainfall is between 150 and 600 mm per year.

Vegetation is characterised by open herbaceous steppe and short grass savanna, often mixed with woody plant species. It is known for its thorny trees and mostly annual grasses. Wildfires often occur. The Sahel is also home to countless small wetlands. Millet and sorghum are the predominant crops.

The highly variable average annual rainfall in the Sahel is between 150 and 600 mm per year and vegetation is characterised by open herbaceous steppe and short grass savanna, often mixed with woody plant species. (Source: Pixabay)

Sudanian region

The Sudan, or Sudanian Region, consists of a large belt immediately south of the Sahel. The average annual summer rainfall is between 600 and 1 200 mm and an ecologically dry season that lasts between five to seven months.

The savanna ranges from open tree savannas to wooded savannas to open woodlands. Tall, perennial grasses occur on the savannas and almost always have a woody component with trees growing among the tall grasses.
In the northern part tree savannas dominate, whereas the southern reaches of this region typically transition into denser wooded savannas and open woodlands.

Fire has always been part of the region’s ecology and includes both natural and human-induced bush fires burning up to 80% of the area each year.

Gallery forests, with tall tree species more common in the Guinean Region to the south, follow watercourses, penetrating deep into the Sudanian Region. These species are generally not affected by bush fires and often act as natural fire breaks. Maize, groundnuts and cowpeas are the most predominant crops.

Guinean Region

The Guinean Region lies immediately south of the Sudanian Region, generally defined by average annual rainfall of between 1 200 and 2 200 mm and seasonally wet-and-dry deciduous or semi-deciduous forest. The dry period lasts from six to seven months.

The forest canopy is generally dense and closed over a heterogeneous woody understory. Trees are up to 20 m tall and are generally not affected by bushfires.

Present-day landscapes of the Guinean Region are mostly altered by human activity, particularly slash-and-burn agriculture. Most of what remains has been modified by humans. The tree and wooded savannas are extensive, and forests have been replaced by ‘derived savanna’, which is a mosaic of cropland, bush fallow and secondary forest resulting from centuries of human influence. Gallery forests of varying width follow watercourses. Root crops such as cassava and yams are found mostly across the Guinean zone.

The average rainfall in the Sudanian zone is between 600 and 1 200 mm and the vegetation consist of open tree savannas to wooded savannas and open woodlands. (Source: https://prepp.in/news/e-492-savannah-climate-sudan-climate-geography-notes).

Guineo-Congolian region

This region is the wettest in West Africa, with average annual rainfall of between 2 200 and 5 000 mm that falls throughout the year, or in two rainy seasons with short drier periods between them.

The region is geographically split into western and eastern blocks, referred to as the Upper and Lower Guinean Forests, separated by the Dahomey Gap, where savanna reaches the coast.

Although this region might have been mostly forested in the past, only a fraction of the land is forested today. The forests are dense with tall trees that reach heights of over 60 m. In general, the upper tier usually has a discontinuous canopy over a lower, dense canopy. Woody climbers and epiphytes are characteristic of the undergrowth; herbaceous ground cover is sometimes present. Tree crops such as cocoa, palm trees or cashew trees as well as rice, one of the most harvested crops in terms of area, are found in this zone.

West African cuisine

The 16 countries encompass a diverse range of foods. A lot of families grow their own food, from many plants that are indigenous. They also raise livestock and hunt wild animals.

The history of West Africa also plays a big role in their cuisine, recipes and interactions with different cultures, particularly the Arab world and later Europeans, such as the French and Britons, who introduced many ingredients that eventually became key components of national cuisines.

History of the region’s cuisines

Yams, native West African rice and millet are traditional indigenous foods. Native spices include grains of paradise which refer to the seeds of Aframomum melegueta that belong to the ginger family, grains of Selim are the seeds of a shrubby tree Xylopia aethiopic, Alligator pepper is made from the seeds and seed pods of Aframomum daniellii, A. citratum, and A. exscapum, is a close relative of the grains of paradise and Calabash pepper or African nutmeg.

European merchant ships brought chili peppers, maize and tomatoes from the New World (Americas), which make up the main ingredients along with peanuts, cassava and plantains.

Sauces and spices

Although the countries all have their own special dishes, they also have certain ingredients in common. This includes a combination of tomatoes, onions and chili peppers, palm nut oil, shea butter, hot pepper and ginger, tamarind leaves, rice and maize, as well as millet, peanut butter and fruit of the baobab tree. Other ingredients include sorghum and fonio (ancient cereal grain), egusi (watermelon) seeds, cola nuts, okra, black-eyed peas, and sesame.

Sauces usually consist of tomatoes, onions and chili with garlic, thyme, ginger, curry powder and Maggi stock cubes.

Vegetables

Common vegetables used include black-eyed peas, eggplant, pumpkin and other squashes, okra and green leafy vegetables. Other greens include the leaves of the baobab, pumpkin, rosella, sweet potato and cassava plants.
Starchy tubers and root vegetables, such as cassava, cocoyam, sweet potatoes, plantains and yams are boiled and pounded into a thick paste called fufu, which is used as a starch along with fonio, rice, millet, sorghum and maize.

Meat

West Africans eat several types of meat, including red meat from livestock, such as beef, pork and mutton, but goat meat is the preferred choice. White meat includes chicken and guinea fowl; people also eat the eggs of both birds. Seafood is eaten along the coast, while many dishes combine fish and meat.

Source references

West Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa

West African Cuisine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_cuisine

Agricultural Expansion Across West Africa
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/agricultural-expansion-across-west-africa