Women stand to profit from a new look at indigenous vegetables |
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| Improving livelihoods of vegetable growers and processors through market promotion of fresh and processed indigenous vegetables | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A new focus on indigenous vegetables has helped to highlight their strategic food security role, offering important opportunities for the poor - particularly women - who farm, process and trade them. Until recently, these vegetables were viewed as minor crops with little economic importance, and therefore were overlooked by research in Africa. This meant that next to nothing was known about their productive potential, economic value or contribution to household nutrition and livelihoods. A workshop in 1997 helped to reverse this situation, identifying important species and priorities for research. Now, new methods for participatory selection are helping to produce improved varieties in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and information leaflets in local languages have been distributed to farmers, NGOs and government departments. Project Ref: CPH29:
Research Programmes: Crop Post Harvest Programme Relevant Research Projects: R6964: Opportunities and constraints in the commercialisation of indigenous vegetable in E & W Africa
R7487: Improving the livelihoods of peri-urban vegetable growers through market promotion of fresh and processed indigenous vegetables The research project, undertaken in Zimbabwe, was co-ordinated jointly by John Orchard (NRI) and Fabeon Chigumira Ngwerume (HRI), with the following partners:
R6630: Integrated Food Crops Systems Project: Enhancing Smallholder Livelihoods through Reducing Costs and Adding Value to Agricultural Production.
Integrate approach Indigenous vegetables (IVs) have a strategic food security role, offering significant opportunities for the poor, particularly women, through farming, processing and trading activities. Until recently, these commodities were viewed as minor crops of little economic importance, and therefore had not been a focus for research in Africa. Little is known of their productive potential, economic value and contribution to household nutrition and livelihoods, and in relation to extracted products for nutritional and medicinal use. In addition, IVs are a resource that is being subject to habitat and genetic erosion, with loss of local knowledge. Following a strategy paper to determine their significance an all-Africa workshop in 1997 identified important species and priorities for research, particularly the need to fully understand production, handling and marketing. This guided subsequent diagnostic studies (R6964) on the opportunities and constraints to commercialisation in Uganda and Cameroon which determined that:
These constraints were addressed in research projects in Ghana (1996 - 99) and Zimbabwe (1999 - 2003), which aimed to improve the livelihoods of peri-urban vegetable growers through market promotion of fresh and processed indigenous vegetables. Outputs from the project were: Methodology: participatory varietal selection to produce new varieties involving farmers, traders, scientists and dissemination organisations in planning and execution, particularly by farmers and traders to validate the research through identifying crop desirable characteristics and in varietal selection for both on-station and on-farm trials. Technology:
Awareness raising - publication of book and CD-ROM - Schippers, R. R., (2000). African indigenous vegetables. An overview of the cultivated species.
The projects covered the following commodities: garden egg, cowpea (bean and leaf), bottle gourd, Corchorus and Cleome (spider plant). However, the approaches and methodologies used could apply to all vegetables.
Improving access to and benefit sharing from local knowledge and (agro)-biodiversity: IVs play a strategic role in the livelihoods of women and men. Enhancing their future role will involve a range of stakeholders in processes which should ensure both improved access and benefit sharing with respect to local knowledge and biodiversity. Use should be made of the project "Gender, Biodiversity and Local Knowledge to Strengthen Agricultural and Rural Development" (LinKS project), implemented in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland which explored linkages among local knowledge systems, gender roles/relationships, food provision, and the conservation and management of agro-biodiversity. Pest and disease management: There is a need to develop and validate pest and disease control strategies making use of projects such as:
Participatory plant breeding, varietal selection and seed management: A number of initiatives have strengthened the role of farmers in varietal development, including:
Improving pro-poor supply chains: Little work has been undertaken on understanding and managing the supply chains of indigenous vegetables. Systems and tools that have been developed by other projects in integrated supply chain management should be examined for their applicability for national marketing of IVs:
Market information systems developed by the following projects could assist in this area including:
How the outputs were validated: In Ghana, validation of the vegetable improvement programme was integrated into the project by active involvement of the end-users of the outputs i.e. farmers and traders. This was crucial because varietal selection is particularly difficult in highly heterogeneous environments where smallholders have a range of preferences. To address this issue, the Project involved, from an early stage, farmers, traders, scientists and those involved in promotion and uptake in the following way:
The above approach can be used in any vegetable improvement programme particularly where the source of genetic diversity resides with farmers, which is typical of those engaged in cultivation of indigenous crops. In Zimbabwe, most of the research undertaken was more strategic in nature which aimed to understand some of the fundamental approaches required to improve yield through improved nursery, agronomic and harvesting practices. More adaptive research was undertaken in the development of solar drying technologies for preserving indigenous leafy crops. This was undertaken through on-farm trials so that the farmers/processors could validate the processing technology and the dried products from the solar dryers. Who are the Users? In both Ghana and Zimbabwe information leaflets (in local languages) have been distributed to farmers and farmers' organisations, NGOs and government departments, including extension agencies. In Ghana, garden egg germplasm and the methodology for participatory varietal selection was deposited with the Crops Research Institute which has continued the breeding programme to develop improved varieties. In Zimbabwe, cowpea seed from improved varieties were distributed to farmers and their organisations and to District Extension Officers in Matebeleland North and South and Midlands Province to establish demonstration plots for their districts. The outputs from the project were used in the CGIAR indigenous vegetable programme of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre (AVRDC), Arusha, Tanzania. These were incorporated into further research projects in Cameroon and Tanzania and in training programmes for African researchers. Where the outputs have been used: The improved germplasm was used by the Crops Research Institute, Ghana for further breeding research programmes. The outputs and information from these projects has been incorporated in the website of the Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) at htpp://www.prota.org. The direct target groups for the PROTA information are the decision-makers in government, private sector, research, education and rural development, whose decisions affect millions of people depending for their livelihood on the plant resources. The findings from these projects and more extensive information on African IVs have also been distributed as a book (Schippers, R. R., 2000. African indigenous vegetables. An overview of the cultivated species. Natural Resources Institute/ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, Chatham, United Kingdom. 214 pp.) and on CD-ROM. The results from these projects were also fed into the CGIAR with a DFID-funded project at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre, Arusha, Tanzania (Project title: Improving Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa Through Increased Utilization of Indigenous Vegetables: Studies on Seed Production and Agronomy of Major African Vegetables). The project transferred the approaches developed in the CPHP projects to Cameroon and Tanzania with the aim of developing new varieties from local landraces and to carry out basic agronomic studies on these new varieties. It is anticipated that wider dissemination will be achieved through this CGIAR linkage. Scale of Current Use: The scale of current use in the project countries is limited because of institutional issues of technology and output transfer, particularly in areas of seed delivery. For instance in Zimbabwe, for reasons unconnected with the normal problems of research uptake, further dissemination has not been possible in the last few years with the erosion of institutional infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success: One of the key factors for success in adoption of research outputs begins with ensuring that the outputs meet the needs of the end-users/beneficiaries. It is important to identify these carefully, being mindful of gender issues e.g. certain crops are usually the domain of women. Other groups such as traders and processors have an important place in achieving success, since they may be keen to adopt improved produce, new commodities, but equally they will not be able to sell produce where there is no market. Having identified key end-users, it is important to work with them in the research process and in dissemination e.g. farmers' school, trade groups/associations. Other agents for adoption e.g. extension agents, should also play some part in the research process by establishing partnerships with nodal organisations e.g. farmers' associations, traders, supermarket network, to develop training programmes with end-users. An important element for wider transfer of technology is an effective trainer of trainers programme to achieve wider dissemination. This system should have at its apex a capable cadre of trainers who have the capability to receive and adapt knowledge in collaboration with researchers and other specialists and to develop the appropriate materials that can be cascaded down to a wider network of intermediary trainers and then on to end-users. In transferring knowledge it is important to take a holistic approach to ensure that, if necessary other constraints in all parts of the value chain have been addressed and if necessary establish appropriate training programme for all players, e.g. labourers, farmers, transporters, traders, and public and private sector trainers and technical staff. A significant outcome of this approach can be the strengthening of linkages between different groups, and to enhance their capacity to articulate their needs and to contribute to the innovation process. Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits: An important benefit of working with indigenous crops is to gain an understanding and make greater use of crops that have adapted to local environmental and edaphic pressures. Greater benefits arising from the use of indigenous crops will help to maintain biodiversity and stabilise fragile eco-systems. Adverse Environmental Impacts: Four potential environmental impacts can be identified from developing markets for natural products: bio-diversity loss, soil degradation, watershed degradation, and global warming and pollution. In developing market opportunities for some IVs it is important to recognise the danger of biodiversity erosion where those crops are collected from wild sources to avoid overexploitation as has happened with some species. For example in Nigeria, many of the approximately 150 different local vegetable species are becoming scarce. The main reason for that is not that their demand is declining but the fact that it is becoming harder to collect them from the wild. Some of these crops used to be common in the natural forests but have been harvested to extinction and the only reason why they can still be found today is that some people started to domesticate them. Other species were not domesticated and can no longer be found today. Also, greater commercialisation of traditionally wild-harvested or low input systems may increase the use of agro-chemicals, often in fragile eco-systems. Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters: The increasing unreliability of rainfall in many parts of southern Africa, has called into question official policies encouraging the cultivation of crops dependant on reliable rainfall, and has highlighted the need to explore other approaches to food security. Policy development and implementation is often constrained by lack of understanding and attention to gender and local knowledge considerations. The projects funded by the CPHP have begun to address the need to understand the importance of IVs, gender aspects of cultivation and trading, and how simple technologies can enhance their productivity. However, there remains the need to devote more resources to understand the role of these indigenous species in relation to climate change. Relevant Research Projects,
with links to the
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For relevant research projects, with links to further information Geographical regions included: Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe,  Target Audiences for this content:Crop farmers, Processors, |
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