Promoting indigenous vegetables for health, food security, and income generation in Africa.

摘要

The importance of indigenous vegetables (IVs) is often discussed in the context of biodiversity conservation and food security. The IVs are rich in micronutrients, antioxidants, anti-malaria, and anti-microbial phytochemicals. Since 1998 the AVRDC-Regional Center for Africa (RCA) has been working on R&D, training, and information on IVs with major emphasis on eco-geographic assessment, collection, evaluation, and identification of promising germplasm. Socio-economic studies found that poor and rural households rely on IVs as a source of micronutrients. In urban areas, the willingness to pay for IVs is high but supply is sporadic and irregular. However, the main constraint to production is availability of quality seed. Private seed companies are beginning to enter the IVs seed market. In addition, processing of IVs is still underdeveloped. In this paper, characterization for morphological traits and evaluation of some purified accessions are reported. Production practices for selected IVs were also developed and genetic enhancement carried out to generate quality seed. Agri-business is slowly picking up for some of the IVs. These initiatives have resulted in our collection of over 1,365 accessions of amaranth, Ethiopian mustard, African eggplant, jute mallow, roselle, pumpkin, okra, bitterleaf, nightshade, spiderplant, bambara groundnut, hyacinth bean, moringa, and vegetable cowpea. Among these accessions, 27 promising lines have been identified and are being promoted. More than 5 tons base seed of IVs have been produced and distributed to the NARES, NGOs, private sector, and over 12,000 farmers in Africa. Case studies on African eggplant and nightshade indicated that these crops are becoming popular and are also a good source of income to small scale farmers.