African indeginous crops.
The likes of cassava, millet, arrowroot, Sweet potato, groundnut, yams, black nightshade, Amaranth, pumpkins,..bananas(not tissue culture)...these are the ones that were termed as 'orphaned crops', but due to the increasing level of awareness amongst consumers these are now commonly accepted as 'high value crops'. Their nutritional values by far exceed their exotic counterparts. Most of them contain medicinal properties e.g. pumpkin seeds.Their agronomy doesn't require conventional farm inputs. Some of them are drought resistant and don't have a big problem with pests and diseases. what is worrying is how research institutes have developed 'improved' varieties of these crops, e.g. orange fleshed sweet potato, despite having been at the forefront of propagating exotic food crops such as wheat, maize, rice, brassicas, coffee and tea that are responsible for the marginalization of African indigenous crops. Fabricating new varieties means negating the indigenous species, the original genetics. The green revolution has done much to increase food production. Nevertheless, it has led to the loss of our indigenous crops, the deterioration of human, animal, plant and environmental health and has largely endorsed a global modern lifestyle that is not sustainable, that heaps up tonnes and tonnes of waste on one hand while many die of hunger on the other. With the increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases, its important to re-adopt the farming and consumption of indigenous African food crops for their nutritional, medicinal, social cultural and economical values.
Hello, i agree with these content absolutely, keep it up!