Economic Growth, Renewable Energy Consumption, and Cereal Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the Pre-, During, and Post-COVID-19 Periods

Cereal production is a cornerstone of food security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), yet the region continues to experience persistent undernourishment despite long-term growth in agricultural output. Existing studies often examine the determinants of agricultural production through fragmented approaches, focusing on isolated factors such as climate conditions, land use, or specific agricultural inputs. This study addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive assessment of agricultural performance through the integration of economic growth, renewable energy access, agricultural inputs, institutional factors, and the COVID-19 pandemic within a unified analytical framework. Using annual panel data from 35 SSA countries spanning 2004–2022, the study employs a fixed-effects model with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for cross-sectional dependence, heteroskedasticity, and serial correlation. The results reveal that land expansion, fertilizer use, renewable energy access, and economic growth exert positive and statistically significant effects on cereal production, while political instability significantly constrains cereal production. Furthermore, the study extends the literature by separately examining the during-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 periods, providing new evidence that SSA’s agricultural sector demonstrated considerable resilience to pandemic-related shocks. These findings suggest that improving food security in SSA requires an integrated policy framework that promotes technological advancement, expands access to modern energy, strengthens institutional stability, and enhances the resilience of agricultural systems to future shocks.