Category: Markets

Posted on

Vegetables in Africa, traditional and otherwise

The FARA Secretariat blog linked to a couple of items which are sort of related, if you look hard enough. One is about Prof. Mary Abukutsa-Onyango’s work studying (in particular the nutritional properties) and promoting traditional leafy greens in Kenya, which has just won her a fellowships from African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD). You can read or listen to a podcast about it. The other piece is about the African Drylands Commodity Atlas. The connection is that there is actually a section on vegetables in the atlas, along with coffee, cotton, sugar, timber, livestock products etc. Alas, it’s things like cabbages, tomatoes and onions, destined for Europe.

In the rush to export to Europe, African domestic and regional vegetable markets have often been overlooked. Local, district and national markets provide the first outlet and are the primary clients for increased vegetable production.

Still a lot of promotion to be done on those traditional greens, despite the potential for intra-regional trade. Come to think of it, a third of yesterday’s FARA blog posts may also be relevant to African indigenous vegetables. This year’s Economic Report on Africa is focused on “Developing African Agriculture through Regional Value Chains.” Can we hope for a joined-up analysis of all this from FARA?

Posted on

Nomenclatura

The NYT reports that most cultures use the same categories to classify plants, such as trees, vines, herbs, bushes. People also consistently use two-word combinations for specific organisms within a larger group. At least that is what Cecil Brown found after studying 188 languages. It would be interesting to compare the kinds of labels used for crops and crop varieties across cultures. Has anyone done that?

The article also says that we are “losing the ability to order and name and therefore losing a connection to and a place in the living world.” The other day, Jacob commented on “Los tomates ya no saben a nada” by saying that he has “had more and less tasty Spanish tomatoes this summer. The thing is that you can’t “see” taste when you buy (the variety is not indicated)” 1.

Should we try to get more variety names in shops, markets, restaurants? The slow/organic/local food movement puts a lot of emphasis on where things are grown, but less on what is grown. Also think Starbucks & co.: coffee from Sumatra, Ethiopia, Antigua; but what variety? And why always arabica? Can’t they serve a nice barako? 2

Posted on

Nibbles: Dogs squared, Afghanistan’s poppies, Rice at IRRI, Book on sapodilla chicle in Mexico, Opuntia, Trees

  • DNA survey of African village dogs reveals as much diversity as in East Asian village dogs, undermines current ideas about where domestication took place.
  • Fossil doubles age of dog domestication.
  • “When children felt like buying candy, they ran into their father’s fields and returned with a few grams of opium folded inside a leaf.”
  • “The rice, a traditional variety called kintoman, came from my grandfather’s farm. It had an inviting aroma, tasty, puffy and sweet. Unfortunately, it is rarely planted today.”
  • “An era of synthetic gums ushered in the near death of their profession, and there are only a handful of men that still make a living by passing their days in the jungle collecting chicle latex…The generational changes in this boom-and-bust lifestyle reflect a pattern that has occurred with numerous extractive economies…”
  • Morocco markets prickly pear cactus products.
  • TreeAid says that sustainable agriculture depends on, well, trees.
Posted on

Traditional tattoo dye to go mainstream

The report in FoodNavigator seemed pretty boring at first sight:

EcoFlora has developed a natural, acid-stable blue coloring for foods, beverages and cosmetics and it says the creation of a sustainable supply chain differentiates it from other colors on the market.

But then I googled the plant involved (“edible jagua fruit, which grows in the Chocó rainforest” of Colombia). It turns out jagua is Genipa americana, which is cultivated for its edible fruit, but also has other traditional uses.

South American Indians bathe their legs in the clear liquid obtained from the fruit. The liquid has an astringent effect. When the liquid oxidizes, it stains the skin black. These stains are permanent, but only color the top few layers of skin, and thus disappear after about a fortnight, when the skin is naturally shed. As South Americans Indians went into battle, they used to paint themselves with Genipa juice and annatto.

The active compound is called genipin. Apparently, there’s been a “recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art.”

There’s nothing in the FoodNavigator piece about where the idea for this “natural, acid-stable blue coloring for foods, beverages and cosmetics” ultimately came from. However…

EcoFlora says it is committed to working with some of the poorest communities in the region to harvest the fruit in a manner which is environmentally sustainable and beneficial to the local economy.

Well, that’s something, I suppose.