This chapter examines Africa’s food security/climate nexus, focusing on the normative tensions between the dominant productivist paradigms and emerging alternative frameworks. It investigates how African actors adopt, adapt and contest global environmental norms to address challenges in achieving sustainable food systems. It argues that food security, defined through the lens of yield maximization and export-orientated productivity, operates as a hegemonic norm historically shaped by colonial legacies. The study. demonstrates that alternative food norms in Africa, such as agroecology, are increasingly visible, but still face structural barriers to institutionalization. A genuine transformation of African food systems requires effective integration of alternative norms advanced by African actors into policy frameworks. It advocates for strengthening African agency in defining and applying norms to ensure sustainable food security tailored to the continent’s socio-political realities.