Preface

Negative reports about Africa are all too common. We are regularly bombarded with worrying statistics and even more depressing projections about agriculture on this continent, for example, not to mention population, politics and the environment. However, the figures do not always tell the whole story. Take agriculture. There is an enormous - though unfortunately often overlooked -reservoir from which to draw hope: the diversity of African plants and ways of using them for food and other purposes. Unfortunately, this reservoir is under threat: it has already started to erode because of neglect, insufficient knowledge and inadequate support to institutions and communities that conserve biodiversity.

Africa's traditional vegetables are a case in point. Most people would recognize that they have been relatively neglected by the scientific and development communities. Several reasons can be put forward to explain why this has happened, though they do not excuse it. There is a very large number of these species. As an illustration, take the list of leafy vegetables used in Kenya, extracted from the Indigenous Food Plants Database of the National Museums of Kenya. It includes 69 species in perhaps 25 families, ranging from annual herbs to trees. Many of these species are poorly known, many are used only locally. They are difficult subjects for conventional agronomic study, often being cultivated in small patches in home gardens or growing as weeds in marginal areas within farms or wild in forest areas. The primary producers, transformers and sellers of indigenous vegetables are members of a group that has all too often been overlooked by scientists and development workers, namely women. Yet, taken as a category, traditional vegetables are extremely important for nutrition and farm income throughout Africa. For example, they often supply most of the daily requirements for vitamins A, B complex and C of poor rural people.

Despite their importance, traditional vegetables are being displaced in many areas, partly because of their neglect by the scientific community relative to some recently introduced species - on which there is much more scientific information -and improved varieties, which are more easily available. This trend is to the detriment of local people's health and income, and has been exacerbated by urban migration. Not enough of these valuable plants are being moved into the specialized micro-environments of urban and peri-urban agriculture.

The conservation of the genetic resources of African traditional vegetables -and of the wealth of indigenous knowledge about genetic variation, cultural practices and processing that is associated with them - is thus an extremely topical and urgent issue. This fact was recognized explicitly by the CTA/IPGRI/KARI/UNEP seminar held in October 1992 at UNEP under the title "Safeguarding the genetic basis of Africa's traditional crops." Two of the recommendations of that meeting lie behind the present workshop, organized by IPGRI's Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Office, the University of Nairobi and BMZ/GTZ. One recommendation was that more attention should be paid by the plant genetic resources conservation community to hitherto relatively neglected species, in particular indigenous vegetables and other so-called 'minor' crops. Another recommendation of the 1992 meeting was that more research was needed on the role played by home and kitchen gardens as repositories of biodiversity - and therefore on the role of women as curators and managers of genetic resources.

This is not to say that there has been no work on these subjects by plant genetic resources workers. For example, in the proceedings of the 1992 meeting there is a paper on indigenous vegetables in Kenya - in particular their potential for genetic improvement - by Prof. James Chweya of the Department of Crop Science, University of Nairobi, one of the organizers of the present meeting. Other work includes numerous national projects and programmes - by research institutes, universities and NGOs - and regional and international programmes, for instance the work of the Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation programme, the United Nations University's work on home gardens and the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre's Working Group on Vegetables. Some of these activities will be discussed during the course of this workshop.

It will be useful to summarize IPGRI's own work on African vegetables. Our interest goes back a long way. As long ago as 1977, IBPGR published "Tropical vegetables and their genetic resources," a comprehensive review of the situation. Since then IBPGR supported - and IPGRI continues to support - collecting for ex situ conservation. For example, Lester et al. (1990)¹ summarize collecting of African eggplants, with special reference to West Africa. IBPGR was instrumental in the setting up of the Agricultural Research Corporation genebank at Wad Medani in Sudan, which specializes in vegetables. We also have been gathering information on existing collections, and continue to do so. A directory of vegetable collections came out in 1990. The data it contains are also maintained in databases which are regularly updated. A list of vegetables collections in sub-Saharan Africa extracted from the database (excluding tomato) has been produced (Table 1).

¹ Lester, R.N., P.M.L. Jaeger, B.H.M. Bleijendaal-Spierings, H.P.O. Bleijendaal and H.L.O. Holloway. 1990. African eggplants - a review of collecting in West Africa. Plant Genet. Resour. Newsl. 81-82:17-26.

IPGRI is also discussing with IPK, Gatersleben, Germany a project on 'Biodiversity in Home Gardens'. We have already had an input into the UNU's home gardens work as reviewers of some of the country reports and are keen to develop the collaboration further. A project proposal on 'Biodiversity of Neglected Leafy Green Vegetables Crops in Africa' also has been developed.

There is ample scope for expanding IPGRI's involvement in research and other activities on African vegetables. Several potential areas of contribution can be identified, for example:

1. The preparation of bibliographies of conventional and grey literature.

2. The development of crop descriptor lists to aid characterization and evaluation, and of taxonomic identification aids.

3. The documentation and evaluation of indigenous knowledge on traditional vegetables, to the benefit of both scientists and local people.

4. Research on such biological issues as the distribution of genetic diversity within species and optimal seed storage conditions, and on such socioeconomic factors as the policies that work against the continued use of traditional vegetables by communities, with a view to developing multifaceted strategies for conservation.

5. The production and distribution of educational materials to raise awareness of the importance of traditional vegetables among farmers, scientists and policymakers.

6. An assessment of training needs and, in the longer term, collaboration in the provision of training.

Species	Institute	No. access.	Species	Institute	No. access.
Abelmoschus esculentus	BFA003	51	Corchorus spp.	NGA010	28
A. esculentus	CIV028	770	Corchorus spp.	SDN002	34
A. esculentus	ETH001	11	Corchorus spp.	ZMB001	4
A. esculentus	GHA010	198	C. tricularis	KEN015	19
A. esculentus	MLI002	21	Hibiscus calyphyllus	ZAF001	1
A. esculentus	MUS020	17	H. engleri	ZAF001	2
A. esculentus	NGO003	258	H. meeusii	ZAF001	1
A. esculentus	ZAF001	4	H. micrantha	ZAF001	1
A. esculentus	ZMB001	106	H. pusillus	ZAF001	1
Abelmoschus spp.	CIV028	630	Hibiscus spp.	KEN015	3
Abelmoschus spp.	NGA010	374	Hibiscus spp.	KEN015	12
Abelmoschus spp.	SDN002	173	Hibiscus spp.	ZAF001	42
Amaranthus hybridus	ETH013	12	Hibiscus spp.	ZMB001	88
A. hybridus	ZAF001	3	H. trionum	ZAF001	1
A. tricolor	ZAF001	2	Solanum gilo	GHA010	76
Corchorus olitorius	ETH001	1	S. macrocarpon	GHA010	66
C. olitorius	ETH013	5	S. melongena	GHA010	6
C. olitorius	KEN015	68	S. melongena	GIN016	4
Corchorus spp.	ETH013	2	S. melongena	MUS020	20
Corchorus spp.	GIN016	8	S. melongena	ZAF001	10
Corchorus spp.	KEN015	31	S. nigrum	MUS020	3
Corchorus spp.	NGO003	24	Solanum spp.	GHA010	162

BFA003	Institut Burkinabe de Recherche Agronomique et Zootechnique, Burkina Faso
CIV028	Institut Internationale de Recherche Scientifique pour le Developpement en Afrique, Côte d'Ivoire
ETH001	Biodiversity Institute, Ethiopia
ETH013	International Livestock Research Institute, Ethiopia
GHA010	Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Crop Research Institute, Ghana
GIN016	Bureau des Ressources Phytogenetiques, Guinea
KEN015	National Gene Bank of Kenya
MLI002	Institut d'Economie Rurale, Mali
MUS020	Barkly Experiment Station, Mauritius
NGO003	National Horticultural Research Institute, Nigeria
NGA010	National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, Nigeria
SDN002	Horticultural Research Station, ARC, Sudan
SYC001	Grande Anse Experiment Centre, Seychelles
TZA016	Tropical Pesticides Research Institute, Tanzania
ZAF001	Directorate of Plant Quality Control, South Africa
ZAF058	Grassland Research Centre, ARC, South Africa
ZMB001	Mount Makulu Agricultural Research Station, Zambia

Some of the objectives of this workshop are implicit in this presentation: the exchange of information, informal networking and the discussion of possible collaborative projects. A key objective of the workshop, however, is to begin to develop a regional strategy for the conservation and use of genetic resources of traditional vegetables in Africa. This should take into account all the tools at our disposal -utilizing both ex situ and in situ approaches, each with their various options - and all the possible players - national and international, both formal and informal sectors.

This is a big task. To tackle it we must identify gaps and constraints, and we must look at how other disciplines - for example ethnobotany, agricultural economics and nutrition science - can assist agronomists, breeders and plant genetic resources workers in plugging the gaps and overcoming the constraints.

All of us here have a long-standing commitment to the conservation and use of Africa's traditional vegetables. At earlier meetings we have made recommendations as to what should be done. We also have been implementing some of these recommendations, often despite resource constraints and neglect at the policy level. This meeting is a step forward in the process, but it is also an opportunity to take stock and plan. Perhaps most importantly, it is an affirmation of the great, but as yet only partially fulfilled, potential of Africa's plant genetic resources: resources that can and must be used to improve the welfare of African communities.

A.F. Attere
Director, IPGRI, Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Office