Just three plant species – wheat, maize and rice – account for 60% of all food eaten globally. A crop science expert argues that many of Africa’s 30,000 edible plants must be revived.
THE CONVERSATION
African countries have become reliant on a few food items. Just 20 plant species now provide 90% of our food, with three – wheat, maize and rice – accounting for 60% of all calories consumed on the continent and globally. This deprives the continent of diverse food sources, at the very time when research has found massive food and nutrition insecurity in Africa.
By 2020, about 20% of the continent’s population (281.6 million) faced hunger. This figure is likely to have increased, given the impacts of successive droughts, floods and COVID-19.
Yet historically, Africa had 30,000 edible plant species, and 7,000 were traditionally cultivated or foraged for food. The continent is a treasure trove of agrobiodiversity (a diversity of types of crops and animals) and its countries could easily feed themselves.
As society and agriculture evolved, many foods that defined diets and sense of self on the continent were lost. Many of these now occupy the status of neglected and underutilised crop species. Knowledge of their production is slowly fading away.
We reviewed studies and policies related to wild food plants, nutrition and justice and found that many underutilised but nutritious and hardy crop species that could be grown to end hunger in Africa. These included Bambara groundnut, cowpea, pigeon pea, millet, sorghum and African leafy vegetables such as amaranth and wild mustard.
Our findings identify nutritious crops that can tolerate heat and drought and could be planted by smallholders on land that is unsuitable for mass monoculture.
But, for this to happen, policy changes are needed. Governments should encourage their production and consumption through incentives. Campaigns are needed to build awareness and education about the health and environmental benefits of the crops and to dispel the social stigma that they are only eaten by poor people.
Resetting Africa’s food systems
The current agrifood system has not delivered for Africa. Our research shows that Africa’s food and nutrition insecurity is not, as often assumed, the result of low agricultural productivity, poverty or the hot, harsh climate. Africa has millions of hectares of fertile soil, now threatened by degradation, and made worse by climate change.
The Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, in which monocrops like maize wheat and rice were grown on a mass scale, with large amounts of fertilisers, heralded the industrial agrifood system. But it did not translate into success in Africa, where monoculture led to ecological and environmental degradation. It undermined the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers and created a food and nutrition insecurity paradox – hunger amid plenty.
