Colonizers forced African communities to abandon their cultural practices regarding food systems, leading to a lack of interest in them and resulting in their extinction or neglect.
Given the challenges faced by the continent, including climate fluctuations, drought, conflicts, corruption, and natural disasters, there is a need to explore new pathways to achieve food security and revive “forgotten” or “neglected” crops. This is part of a quest for “food sovereignty” that the continent previously relinquished.
These crops could enhance rural economies and promote sustainable land stewardship, yet they do not receive adequate attention despite the nutritional richness they offer and their potential to help families diversify their diets. Hundreds of local food plants could significantly bolster the food supply chain, but only a few of them have received sufficient scientific research or nutritional promotion.
If given the opportunity to compete, these sources are also “crops of opportunity,” better bets for winning the battle to feed a vast continent; they are “wonder crops” due to their many benefits. This article seeks to address the central question: “Can the seeds of ancestors fill the stomachs of descendants in sub-Saharan Africa?”
We approach this question through the following topics:
- What are the forgotten crops in sub-Saharan Africa? And why have they been neglected?
- Reasons for the need for forgotten crops in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Efforts being made to revive forgotten crops.
- Conclusion and recommendations.
1. What are the forgotten crops in sub-Saharan Africa? And why have they been neglected?
The Indian Ocean trade between the East African coast and Asia, which began around 800 AD and continued until it declined in the 16th century, brought new food sources such as sugarcane, bananas, and rice. However, Africans largely relied on indigenous food sources until 1441 AD, when explorers and slave traders arrived at the West African coast. This trade lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries, expanding to incorporate the Americas.
During this time, Africa tasted and adopted American food crops such as beans, squash, peanuts, maize, tomatoes, hot peppers, and sweet potatoes, which gained widespread acceptance on the continent.
Then, in the 19th century, white settlers prioritized commercial agriculture, viewing new crops like coffee, tea, and cocoa as more valuable, profitable, and exportable, and not prone to spoilage. Since the arrival and influence of foreigners, Africa has relied on about twenty food types, most of which are not indigenous. Today, their dishes contain very few native vegetables.
Despite the fact that Africa’s population has doubled in the past thirty years, food production has not kept pace with this increase and remains below the global average. Africa holds 65% of the world’s arable land and boasts diverse agricultural environments and rich plants that could facilitate the development of sustainable food systems.
Indigenous communities have long utilized local crops for food, medicine, and decoration. However, these local crops have been supplanted by industrially preferred varieties such as maize, rice, and wheat, leading to a homogenization of diets and neglect of other crops, referred to as “orphan crops” (or “lost crops,” or “neglected crops,” or “forgotten crops”). These are plant species important to food security, nutrition, and livelihoods in certain regions, yet they receive little attention from global agricultural research, development efforts, and policy initiatives. Such crops are often highly adaptable and resilient, with the ability to thrive in marginal lands with minimal inputs. Examples include millet and sorghum.
Consequently, the pursuit of efficiency and productivity has led to the replacement of a handful of cash crops for a wide variety of subsistence crops; 75% of these crops disappeared during the 20th century. By 2020, only three crops (maize, rice, and wheat) constituted 41% of total global calorie intake. As illustrated below, the growth in the land area dedicated to these three major crops in Africa has far surpassed the growth of traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
There is also a weak value chain for neglected crops like millet; products derived from wheat and cash grains operate within well-established ecological systems that begin on farms and result in packaged products. Investments in these crops are vastly higher than for orphan crops, benefiting from global research networks, funding, and technological innovations, thus boosting productivity and market appeal. Particularly maize, rice, and wheat account for over 40% of calorie consumption, in addition to barley.
Some crops have even been demonized by colonizers as toxic, such as cassava. Furthermore, some research organizations and national archives have listed certain African food sources as harmful weeds, including the nutritious amaranth plant in East Africa, leading to its uprooting to make way for cash crops.
Similarly, the plants for sweet potatoes and okra have suffered a similar fate, alongside other crops. Though the sweet potato and okra are among the continent’s most popular crops, they account for 90% of all sweet potato varieties in the world. The region ranks second after cassava in providing starch, with sweet potato tubers able to be stored for four to six months without refrigeration. Okra, on the other hand, is rich in vitamins A and B, folic acid, protein, calcium, iron, and other minerals.
2. Reasons for the need for forgotten crops in sub-Saharan Africa
According to research released by Oxfam in 2023, seven people across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan will die from hunger in the time it takes an average reader to finish an article. In other words, hunger in East Africa is set to peak with the potential for one person to die every 28 seconds, despite the G7’s commitment to end famine.
Forgotten crops offer an increase in food options and market diversity to create more secure food supplies in the face of recurring shocks; recent crises have revealed many vulnerabilities in food systems. Events such as local and global economic recessions, political and military conflicts, climate changes, pandemics, pests, and crop diseases have driven food prices higher, leaving millions in hunger. Africa has been particularly hard-hit by these crises; more than one in five Africans, or 278 million people, suffer from chronic hunger. Food price inflation in Africa exceeded 20% in June 2022, the highest level since the index began tracking over 20 years ago.
The impacts of climate change are particularly pronounced; on one hand, these effects are already compromising food security and nutrition, and they are expected to continue reducing crop productivity; on the other hand, food systems are responsible for 34% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with Africa bearing a significant brunt of these impacts. Extreme climate events in the Horn of Africa are expected to worsen food insecurity and hinder progress toward reducing malnutrition, potentially increasing the number of people facing crises or worse to between 23 and 26 million if the ongoing drought continues for a fifth season.
Expanding the use of neglected crops could help diversify agriculture and food systems and introduce a wider range of foods into global supplies—including more nutritious grains, fruits and vegetables, roots, and tubers—while also building resilience against climate change, providing employment opportunities, and alternative sources of income for farmers. With parallel interventions and appropriate investments, diversifying food sources could help reduce consumers’ exposure to fluctuations in food prices. Such crops offer a range of options to enhance dietary diversity. Many of them are relatively high in nutritional density, and many are even more nutritious than dominant staple crops. Millet, fonio, and teff have higher iron content than maize, rice, and wheat, and also contain relatively higher levels of amino acids compared to dominant staples.
The nutritional benefits of neglected crops are vital given the issues of malnutrition and poverty in Africa. Lower incomes are often linked to less nutritious diets, resulting in a range of public health concerns. Neglected crops may also outperform dominant staple foods due to their inherent adaptation to natural environments and local conditions. They are better at handling irregular rainfall and poor soil and thrive under dry conditions and even drought. They also exhibit high efficiency in water and nitrogen use, requiring less water and fewer chemical inputs, if any. Consequently, many are suitable for marginal farming, including arid areas. Given their long economic marginalization, they hold significant potential for creating new markets, jobs, and income from production to value-added processing and distribution. Traditional vegetables like amaranth, eggplant, and cabbage are growing in popularity among the wealthier segments of the world’s population and are steadily making their way into consumer markets. Specialized markets can also be developed for traditional grains such as quinoa grown in Latin America.
By assessing their potential to adapt principal staple crop systems in sub-Saharan Africa—such as maize, rice, cassava, and potatoes—to changing climates in the four sub-regions of West, Central, East, and Southern Africa and exploring their potential to diversify crops or replace these staples by 2070, findings suggest that approximately 10% of the current production sites for these four staples in sub-Saharan Africa will experience new climatic conditions by 2070, ranging from a high of about 18% in West Africa to less than 1% in Southern Africa.
From an initial list of 138 forgotten African food crops, including leafy vegetables, other vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds and nuts, roots, and tubers, those that contributed most significantly to covering expected future climatic conditions for staple food production sites were selected. A shortlist of 58 forgotten food crops was identified that could integrate with one another to provide micronutrients, covering over 95% of the assessed production sites.
3. Efforts being made to revive forgotten crops
Numerous efforts are underway to ensure that the continent utilizes local resources to enhance nutrition and food. For instance, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity is working to create ten thousand gardens and activate a network of young leaders in Africa focused on saving biodiversity, promoting traditional knowledge and culinary arts, and supporting family farming and small-scale agriculture. They are also identifying and cataloging high-quality food products at risk of extinction.
The Global Vegetable Center (AVRDC) offers a range of gene banks to meet the specific needs of those wishing to grow these crops. They have 438 species of vegetables listed in their gene bank collection. The International Federation of Standards Users (IFAN) promotes and provides nutritional information, improves access to safe and quality food, and advocates for nutrition for good health in Africa.
The Lost Crops Festival has also been launched as an initiative dedicated to rediscovering and valuing forgotten agricultural treasures in Africa, aiming to highlight forgotten grains and their potential in food and trade, raise awareness, encourage exchanges, and establish a network to promote the rediscovery and development of forgotten cultures in Africa in order to enhance food security and sustainable development.
In March 2021, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets, recognizing that millet can grow in arid lands with minimal inputs and is resilient to climate change. Therefore, it offers an optimal solution for countries to increase self-sufficiency and reduce reliance on imported grains. It is classified as a “superfood” due to its highly nutritious properties. Additionally, it has other benefits as it uses less water and grows in less time than many other grain-based products.
The “Africa Days” Forum, held on June 27 and 28, 2024, in Senegal, focused on “Lost Crops and New Opportunities: Securing Our Future with Crops of the Past.” It emphasized launching the “African Crop Alliance,” a new network aimed at bringing together a wide range of partners—including institutions, companies, and local actors—to exchange and promote sustainable solutions for food security in the Sahel region, raising awareness of issues related to lost crops in Africa, encouraging the consumption of local products, and creating a community committed to improving the global food system while recognizing indigenous crops on the continent.
The spider plant, previously promoted as harmful and widespread in Southern and Eastern African countries until recently, is a “forgotten crop”: occasionally consumed by rural dwellers for subsistence due to its high vitamin, mineral, and nutrient content. The spider plant is one of 52 crops identified in a 2023 study that examined “forgotten” crops that could help make food systems in sub-Saharan Africa more resilient and nutritious, especially as climate change complicates the cultivation of the maize, rice, cassava, and potatoes that the region currently relies upon.
This previously deemed harmful grass is now a common sight in farmers’ markets in Kenya and is directly sold to consumers in Benin. According to “Famara Deedieu,” a program officer at the African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), disruptions in supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine have led many African countries to shift their focus from food security—centered on access to food—to food sovereignty. The alliance works with several countries to implement the “My Food is African” campaign, promoting local and traditional foods while advocating for a more localized food policy and a greater focus on ecological farming within the African Union.
Fonio as a Case Study:
Yolélé Foods is reviving fonio, a type of ancient grain indigenous to West Africa. Since 2017, the U.S.-based company, collaborating with farmers in West Africa, has been reintroducing fonio “to create economic opportunity for small farmer communities, support their diverse, renewable, and climate-resilient agricultural systems, and share African ingredients and flavors with the world.” According to the co-founder and CEO of the company, “Philip Tefero,” the rising wheat prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored “the folly of relying on imported grains and the folly of failing to turn to the crops that have been adapted over thousands of years to the climate and soils of West Africa.” In 2022, the company invested in a fonio processing plant in Mali after receiving a $2 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development.
This project aligns with the company’s strategy to “build processing facilities in West Africa that can transform crops into food sold locally and globally,” and is expected to create nearly 14,000 job opportunities while generating $4.5 million in sales for smallholder farmers over two years.
Building value chains for neglected crops will also encourage the integration of the informal sector, as well as increase participation of small-scale farmers and women in rural areas. Reviving neglected crops will enhance the role of indigenous knowledge in addressing food and climate crises.
Conclusion and Recommendations:
Repeated food crises in sub-Saharan Africa have necessitated the exploration of ancestral grains that have been neglected for various reasons, capable of alleviating hunger and malnutrition problems on the continent and achieving food sovereignty. Yet, these forgotten crops have not received sufficient research attention.
There is thus a need for further research and innovation to assess and ensure the nutrient availability in these crops. More investments and research are required to ensure the capacity for harvesting, processing, and distributing them at scale.
It is also essential to promote their other valuable attributes, such as climate adaptability and water efficiency, through carefully designed financial incentives, technical assistance, and advisory services. Gathering more data will be crucial in driving investments in research and development and in designing effective programs and policies. Sustainable markets are also needed; building local and regional markets through incentives and public investments, including infrastructure development, regulations, and subsidies for actors along the supply chain, as well as procurement policies, educational and promotional campaigns, and regional trade integration are essential. Expanding the adoption of neglected crops will also depend on enhancing a supportive environment through measures such as improving access to land, farm inputs, and financial services, addressing farmer preferences, educational levels, and providing financing.
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