Category: Neglected species

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Traditional African vegetables hit the mainstream

It’s not really all that long since we brought together researchers on that overlooked portion of African agrobiodiversity that is its traditional vegetables for one of the first ever times. I wonder how many of us ever thought that in little more that 10 years we would be able to buy terere and managu and the like wrapped in plastic and barcoded in supermarkets in Kenya:

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Or indeed buy nicely packaged and labelled seed from small agricultural suppliers in places like Limuru:

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Preparation is time-consuming and fiddly, sure:

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But the taste and nutrients are worth it, as more and more people are finding out. We had some Amaranthus for Christmas lunch, from grandma’s shamba. Can’t get much more mainstream than that.

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(Not much) agrobiodiversity on display in Nairobi museum

The main building of the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi has had a facelift, courtesy of the EU. Pretty good job on the outside, but the new exhibits were a bit of a disappointment.

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There’s a big hall about Kenya’s animals, of course, and another series of displays about its cultures, arranged by life-stages (birth, youth, adolescence, initiation: you get the picture), though this includes very little about agriculture:

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But there’s nothing at all on the country’s ecosystems and protected areas, and nothing on its plants, at least inside the building (apart from a display of an herbarium specimen in the small hall describing the museum’s history). There is a little botanic garden dedicated to medicinal plants (arranged by family, the wisdom of which is debatable), but this misses the opportunity of describing the Amaranthus on display as not just a medicinal but also a nutritious traditional leafy green (see my next post):

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However, the entrance hall does have a terrific display of cucurbit diversity:

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These bottle gourds are used by the Maasai and other pastoralists to store water, milk, blood, and mixtures thereof. Here’s a close-up:

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Underutilized plants policies unpacked

Agrobiodiversity policy wonks will be delighted that the recently-morphed Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU), in cooperation with the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative (GRPI), has just come out with the snappily titled “An overview of the international regulatory frameworks that influence the conservation and use of underutilized plant species.” You can download it from the Bioversity International publications pages, along with a separate publication, “The role of policy in the conservation and extended use of underutilized plant species: a cross-national policy analysis.” Other, country-specific GFU policy studies are also available.

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Nibbles: Health, Fungi, Health, Pollan, Organic

  • Nobellist praises biodiversity, ignores food.
  • TED video on world-saving mushrooms.
  • God: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yieleling seed; to you, it shall be for meat.“
  • Pollan: “Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
  • Rodale Institute: “Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems.”