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Climate change fuels 'disappearance' of traditional African vegetables
Traditional fruits and vegetables on display during an African Indigenous Vegetables (AIVs) conference held in Nairobi in 2019.
A wide range of African vegetable varieties are threatened with extinction, while others have already disappeared, as climate change, urbanisation and poor eating habits take their toll.
Speaking at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) in Kigali this week, experts said many indigenous African vegetable varieties are already extinct and others will soon disappear if nothing is done.
“The most endangered species are the African indigenous vegetables. Due to many historical events, many of the indigenous vegetable varieties have been replaced by exotic breeds and the challenge now is where to find these materials,” said Dr Sognigbe N’Danikou, Scientist and Traditional Vegetable Conservation and Utilisation expert at the World Vegetable Center, a non-profit organisation dedicated to vegetable research.
He said, for instance, that a certain type of okra (Abelmoschus manihot), which was widely consumed in West Africa, and traditionally used for medicine, is now very difficult to find.
Others, such as black nightshade and amaranth, are critically endangered, while many other edible wild weeds that were eaten in the past have disappeared. Most of these herbs are rich in minerals and vitamins, crucial for local nutritional support.
In the last 100 years, up to 75 percent of the global diversity of African vegetables has been lost, he argued.
But the problem is global. National Geographic recently reported that between 1903 and 1983, seed varieties declined by about 93 percent, and 30 years later, the fruits and vegetables from those seeds declined even more drastically.
For example, 544 varieties of cabbage shrank to just 28, while 463 varieties of radish were reduced to 27.
In Africa, urbanisation, climate change and poor farming practices are some of the biggest threats.
When bushes are cleared to make way for roads and urban expansion, many vegetable varieties are destroyed, never to be seen again, as many of their seeds are not even saved.
In Eswatini, one of the countries with the highest rate of vegetable extinction, the indiscriminate use of herbicides is a major cause of species destruction.
Meanwhile, floods, landslides and other natural disasters caused by climate change have led to the disappearance of some vegetable varieties.
But governments and the private sector haven't done enough in the past to invest in enough seed banks and research to protect these vegetables.
At the AFS Forum, the World Vegetable Centre launched the Vegetable Biodiversity Rescue Plan, which will act as a roadmap to address the threats facing vegetable species in order to reverse their disappearance.
"The knowledge of these species has also been lost in many traditional communities.
"Africa is also home to many vegetable species whose wild relatives are threatened and disappearing, largely due to urbanisation and climate change.
For example, the wild relatives of the cowpea, which was originally domesticated in Africa, have disappeared," said Sognigbe.
One of the things the rescue project is trying to do is to collect the seeds of these wild varieties and conserve them so that they can be bred in the future.
Up to $12.5 million will be needed to implement the 10-year rescue plan. A pilot project to conserve and use African vegetable biodiversity to combat malnutrition was carried out from 2021 to 2024 with support from the Taiwan Africa Vegetable Initiative.
As part of the pilot, more than 17,000 vegetable varieties have been collected for rescue in Benin, Eswatini, Madagascar and Tanzania.
So far, the pilot phase has resulted in two newly established and three upgraded African genebanks and the training of some 174 African genebank staff.
“This is a matter of urgency. Policy makers, scientists and other stakeholders need to join hands in rescuing these endangered vegetable varieties. We are glad private sector entities like Equity Bank has come on board to support these efforts,” said Colleta Ndunguru, the World Vegetable Centre programme manager for Tanzania.
“We need to make room to promote and support farmer-managed seed systems.”
Experts said there is a need to invest in conservation infrastructure at the national level -- to have functional gene banks that can preserve and replicate what farmers have, so that varieties can be preserved before they are lost.
“We need to promote the inclusion of these vegetables in our diets by adopting policies that facilitate and encourage farmers to grow these materials and also consumers to integrate these into their diets,” said Ndunguru.
