IPGRI activities in SSA

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Conservation & use
Documentation

Leafy vegetables are important in the diet of many African countries. An IPGRI project on traditional African leafy vegetables in Africa is yielding important insights into the diversity, uses and farmer management of germplasm that is challenging conventional beliefs about these underutilized species. Development specialists did not think that leafy vegetables were cultivated very widely, but rather that they were gathered from the wild. Socioeconomic research sponsored by IPGRI found the reverse. Farmers actively cultivated leafy vegetables and managed them according to the diversity they knew was within the species. For example, bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) has several distinct genotypes with different degrees of bitterness that different cultural groups prefer. Farmers would select the material they planted depending on who would be buying and eating the leaves.

The black nightshades (Solanum nigrum complex) are used widely as leafy vegetables and as a source of fruit and medicinal herbs, particularly in the West African forest zones. While S. nigrum grows easily and spontaneously in the forest, the seeds for the preferred types are eagerly sought after in markets and so form a good source of income for the forest farmers. However, the farmers need to be sure they can supply seeds that produce plants that meet consumer tastes, require little preparation and produce most yield. IPGRI project research documented for the first time the value of these leafy vegetables in maximizing the productivity of small plots of land in the forest. The work also highlighted how important it is to maintain the genetic base of the crops and the stability of the ecosystem within the forest farming system to protect the livelihood of low-income farmers in West Africa.

Several other crops of importance in the region that IPGRI is working on through new projects are coffee, cocoa, coconut, Bambara groundnut and fonio.

Coffee is a commodity of enormous value to many SSA countries, but its production in the region has not evolved as compared with production in Latin America. Consequently, Africa has been losing its competitive edge on this front. Yet Africa is the cradle of coffee diversity and offers great opportunities for the improvement of the crop. Some of this diversity has already been collected during past FAO, IBPGR and ORSTOM collecting missions. Some countries, such as Ethiopia, have also been collecting coffee germplasm and conserving it in field genebanks. These collections are not very secure, however, as field genebanks are expensive to maintain and many of the plants succumb to disease and pests and to natural catastrophes. Further, as they have not been properly characterized and evaluated, much of the collections are not used by breeders . Some work on finding alternative methods of conserving coffee germplasm is being undertaken by the IRD and IPGRI. Seed desiccation studies have been initiated to determine the storage behaviour of some wild species. IPGRI is currently in the process of developing a project on "Enhancing the use of coffee germplasm" in partnership with the ACRN and the ICO as well as a number of coffee producing countries in the SSA region.

The West African countries of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon are participating in the globally coordinated project on cocoa germplasm utilization and conservation. Another global initiative led by IPGRI, the International Coconut Genetic Resources Network, has encouraged participation of several countries in the SSA region, particularly in the tropical coastal areas, to work towards improving coconut production and efficient utilization of its products.

The Bambara groundnut, an important hardy African pulse legume, is the subject of a number of research initiatives aimed at gaining a better knowledge of the biology, ethnobotany and management of the crop.

Fonio, Digitaria exilis is another drought tolerant grain, often consumed in West Africa during the hunger season, when the majority of crops are too immature to provide food. Very little research has been undertaken on this crop. As a first step towards understanding fonio better, a monograph is being developed.