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By Annonciata Byukusenge
Experts have called for increasing investment in the vegetable value chain as well as saving and conserving those that are Indigenous as the plan to rescue African vegetables under extinction is launched at the AFA forum in Kigali.
Birungi Korutaro, the Chief Executive Officer of Kilimo Trust which is an organization working on agriculture for development across the East African community – in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, said there is a need for regenerative agriculture techniques to conserve indigenous vegetable species in Rwanda adding they are working with World Vegetable Center.
The organization is implementing a project supporting vegetable farming and value chain in Rubavu District in Rwanda.
“We are supporting vegetable production in Rwanda. One of the major challenges in the vegetable value chain is seed. In the seed systems, farmers cannot get good quality seeds. So we support providing the seed but also our work is regenerative and simply what regenerative means is we utilize the waste, for instance, from the vegetables, and put that back into the soil to produce much better vegetables. So the use of less inorganic fertilizer to produce more nutritious vegetables,” she said.
The African indigenous vegetables, she stressed, are very nutritious as they grow wildly and are resistant to diseases.
“For Indigenous crops to grow, microclimate is suitable for them. Indigenous vegetables are also very important for the ecosystem restoration and regeneration,” she noted.
She added that to prevent Indigenous vegetables from disappearing, there is a need to educate children and others about the benefits of vegetables.
“Studies show that 2 billion people globally are nutrient deficient lacking basic nutrients and minerals and those can be gotten from vegetables to prevent diseases and address nutritious food insecurity,” she added.
She said interventions in supporting vegetable farmers and those growing indigenous vegetable species are also being implemented in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya.
Implementation of the plan to rescue vegetable species under extinction in Africa requires $12.5 million in funding annually according to the World Vegetable Center.
The African Vegetable Biodiversity Rescue Plan was launched at a side event dubbed “Harnessing Africa’s Vegetable Heritage” along the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, where over 5,000 delegates gathered to discuss agriculture and ways to improve food security in week-long deliberations.
“This is a 10-year roadmap to collect, conserve, share, and use vegetable genetic resources to improve nutrition, income, and climate resilience across Africa,” said Maarten van Zonneveld, the Head of Genetic Resources at the World Vegetable Center.
The rescue plan has four components namely rescue and conservation, generating and sharing seed and information, partnerships and enabling policies as well as education and mainstreaming.
“Funding facility is under development in collaboration with the Global Crop Diversity Trust,” he said.
There are more than 1,000 vegetable species, but less than 10 percent of genEbank accessions globally are vegetables, he said.
Genebanks are storehouses of seeds or vegetative tissue, kept in low humidity and temperature, to help maintain genetic diversity.
“Africa is a global hotspot of vegetable biodiversity, but African vegetables are poorly conserved in genebanks. Only one-third of African countries have a genebank and these genebanks are often not functioning well.
Vegetable biodiversity is declining rapidly as part of the general agrobiodiversity loss, so act now to save Africa’s vegetable heritage before it is lost forever,” Zonneveld warned.
Rescue, conservation, and use started with the support of the Taiwan Africa Vegetable Initiative, a project from 2021 to 2024, to conserve and use African vegetable biodiversity to address malnutrition by increasing the production and consumption of nutritious vegetables.
Over 17,000 vegetable varieties have been collected in Benin, Eswatini, Madagascar, and Tanzania for rescue.
Achievements so far include improved long-term conservation of vegetable biodiversity in two newly constructed and three upgraded African genebanks while 174 African genebank staff were trained in safeguarding and using vegetable biodiversity.
“The African Vegetable Biodiversity Plan was developed in a demand-driven process and it was validated by the African Union Commission. Promoting safe vegetable production, consumption, and conservation as a win-win-win solution for Africa,” he added.
The rescue plan seeks to address addresses malnutrition, poverty, and climate change and it supports UN SDGs of zero hunger, no poverty, climate action, and gender equality.
It also aligns with the African Union Agenda 2063, the Malabo Declaration, and the Africa Manifesto on Forgotten Foods, amongst others.
Dany Hakizimana, an agronomist, at Agrah Care, a startup in farm services suggested a center or genebank that conserves such vegetable species and multiplies the seeds to avoid extinction.
“If nothing is done, some vegetable species might disappear. We need technologies to develop such seed varieties, and multiply and conserve them. These vegetable species should be resistant to drought, pests, and diseases,” she said.
