Category: Neglected species

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Recommendations of the Underutilized Plants Symposium

This just in from Hannah Jaenicke, Director of the International Centre for Underutilized Crops (ICUC): 

Over 200 delegates from 55 countries gathered in Arusha, Tanzania 3-7 March 2008 for an International Symposium on “Underutilized plant species for food, nutrition, income and sustainable development”. The Symposium was co-convened under the umbrella of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) by the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) with the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species, Bioversity International, GlobalHort, Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, and the World Vegetable Center, whose Regional Center for Africa was the local host.

The symposium was a resounding approval of the need for a working group on underutilized plant species to provide a voice to those who are working on these plants. The delegates endorsed the International Society for Horticultural Sciences’ working group on underutilized plants, which is co-chaired by Dr Hannah Jaenicke of the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) and Dr Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon of the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU), and filled it with life and suggestions for future collaboration on research and development projects. A report will be published and circulated in the near future.

Following three days of over 150 scientific presentations, the participants developed a series of recommendations around four pertinent issues.

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Sorghum to Swaziland; coals to Newcastle?

I’m having a little trouble getting my head round this one. The “Republic of China on Taiwan” funded a successful project to teach Swazi farmers how to grow sorghum in areas with little rainfall. You might have thought that at least a few local farmers would have known how to grow this staple, but apparently all had been forgotten in the rush to cotton and maize. The Swazi Minister of Agriculture also said that education assisted the move away from sorghum:

Sorghum needed someone in the fields to chase away birds and because most children now go to school, maize then became popular.

The farmers who took part in the project were happy enough with the result. I just hope they don’t keep their children away from school to work as scarecrows.