Traditional African Leafy Vegetables more popular than ever

30 July 2010   |   Permalink   [1]

Patrick Maundu, ethobotanist.

Patrick Maundu, ethobotanist.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua recently carried a major report  detailing the ways in which modern households in East Africa have embraced traditional vegetables  [2]. The reasons are many, not least a shift in how shoppers perceive traditional leafy vegetables. Where once they were considered backward and primitive, they are now increasingly seen as important for nutrition and good health.

In good measure this is the result of campaigns run by Bioversity and local partners to promote the virtues of  traditional African leafy vegetables. Patrick Maundu, an ethnobotanist who has been involved in Bioversity's work on dietary diversity from the outset, pointed out to Xinhua that the benefits go well beyond nutrition.

"Besides other values derived from consuming the vegetables, they are also a major source of income for people who grow it," Maundu says.

Back in August 2007, after a major stakeholder meeting of project partners, Patrick Maundu foresaw some of the challenges in an interview about the African Leafy Vegetables project,  which you can listen to here. (4.6 MB)  [3]

That many of those challenges have been met is testimony to the work done on the ground.

The transformation in attitudes to traditional vegetables is just one outcome of an ongoing project that is now seeing considerable impact on the ground. An extract from Bioversity's 2009 Annual Report  [4] gives more details on how  Diverse Diets Fight Malnutrition and More (329 KB)  [5].

Similar posts:

Filed under: Nutrition  [10], Announcements  [11]See also: African Leafy Vegetables  [12], Incomes  [13], Kenya  [14], Malnutrition  [15], Sub-Saharan Africa  [16]

Web Address of the page:

http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/archived/traditional_african_leafy_vegetables_more_popular_than_ever.html

Links in this page