In the early 1990s scientists in sub-Saharan Africa noted a decline in the presence of traditional African Leafy Vegetables (ALVs) in meals and fields alike. Bioversity International, alarmed by the potential loss of agricultural biodiversity, assembled a broad partnership that, in two successive projects, resulted in a resurgence of interest in ALVs among farmers, researchers and consumers. The area planted to ALVs increased by 80% in some areas and most households growing ALVs reported increases in income. Women were the main beneficiaries, retaining the earnings from ALVs in 80% of households. Among consumers, more families were eating more ALVs more often at the end of the project than at the start.

Lessons Learned

1. ALVs are essentially a local crop, and so efforts to promote ALVs must be promulgated countrywide, with production, marketing and consumption closely linked.
2. Political support is essential. Cross-sector linkages among food security, nutrition and health are needed to develop effective supportive policies.
3. Because ALVs tend to be the province of women, concurrent efforts to improve the economic standing of women are needed to advance ALVs.
4. Documentation of existing ALVs and traditional knowledge regarding their use is a vital component of the effort, and must be both well-used now and stored as a foundation for future flexibility.

Problem

Traditionally, ALVs formed an important component of the diet for rural and urban dwellers. They are cheap, and thus affordable, and also rich in micronutrients that are lacking in imported vegetables and simplified urban diets, and hence important for nutrition. Despite these benefits, more recently ALVs have been ignored by researchers and avoided by consumers. Researchers ignored them because so many species are involved, use can be very local, and they are often wild or weedy rather than well-behaved horticultural crops. Consumers avoided them because they were associated with poverty and low status, and those available in the market were unappealing and of poor quality. Bioversity reasoned that increased use would not only maintain genetic diversity but also deliver improved nutrition and livelihoods.

The Project

Beginning in 1996, in five countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe), Bioversity International coordinated local research partners as they explored and collected the ALV in their region, investigated their nutritional profile and role in the diet and tried to understand the farming and marketing challenges they presented. The information gained in this phase allowed the partners to decide on the eight priority species (see above), which would be the basis of a second phase to improve the nutrition and food security of women and children, as particularly vulnerable groups. Achieving this overall goal would require increasing production, sales and consumption of the priority species, which in turn would result in increased conservation on farms and in genebanks.
The second phase of the project brought together many partners with specialist interests. Farm Concern, an NGO, contributed to training and linked farmers to markets. One of those, Uchumi Supermarkets, worked with farmers to improve quality and consistency of their produce and to strengthen supply chains. Many organisations contributed to successful publicity campaigns that raised the profile of ALV and informed households how to add them to their meals.

Impact

The effect of the project can be seen in several measures.

• Farm families involved in the project reported increased incomes, with women retaining the additional income in almost 80% of the households
• The area devoted to ALV in peri-urban Nairobi increased by almost 70% from 1997 to 2007
• Production increased more than ten-fold
• The number of farmers growing at least one species of ALV increased by 23%
• The average number of ALV species per farm increased from 1.5 to 2.3.
• Consumption of ALV increased among non-farm families, with 37% reporting better health.