The Role of Vegetables and Legumes in Assuring Food, Nutrition, and Income Security for Vulnerable Groups in Sub‐Saharan Africa

• Author: NVPR Ganga‐Rao,Jaqueline Hughes,Emmanuel Monyo,Moses Siambi,Said Silim,Rajeev Varshney,Abdou Tenkouano,Chris Ojiewo,Dyno J. D. H. Keatinge,Ramakrishnan Nair
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.148
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015

The Role of Vegetables and Legumes in Assuring Food,

Nutrition, and Income Security for Vulnerable Groups

in Sub-Saharan Africa

Chris Ojiewo, Dyno J. D. H. Keatinge, Jaqueline Hughes, Abdou Tenkouano,

Ramakrishnan Nair, Rajeev Varshney, Moses Siambi, Emmanuel Monyo,

NVPR Ganga-Rao, and Said Silim

Rising food and nutritional insecurity threatens the livelihoods of millions of poor people,

particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Vegetable and legume production and consumption are a potent

mechanism for small-scale, disadvantaged farmers to obtain the required nutrients in their diets and

to generate much-needed income through trade. Vegetables and legumes are key sources of nutrients

and health-promoting phytochemicals, providing higher micronutrient contents and a wider

spectrum of essential compounds to meet nutritional and health needs than other food sources.

Diversifying diets with vegetables and legumes is a cheaper, surer, and more sustainable way to

supply a range of nutrients to the body and combat malnutrition and associated health problems

than other approaches that target only a single or a few nutritional factors. Furthermore, vegetables

and legumes often accompany staple crops in meals, and most staple crops are less palatable without

vegetable or legume accompaniments. As a growing world population demands more and higher

quality foods, and as environmental problems such as soil degradation, water scarcity, biodiversity

loss, and climate change become more acute, the need for innovative vegetable and legume research

solutions to improve food and nutritional security cannot be overemphasized.

KEY WORDS: nutrition, income security, vegetables

Introduction

In 2013, an estimated 842 million people were suffering from chronic hunger,

down from 868 million in 2012. Although this reduction is promising, the number

of hungry people remains alarmingly high (Food and Agriculture Organization,

2013). Of the 842 million hungry people, 98 percent live in developing regions

(Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013). While chronic hunger f‌igures seem to

be going down, more than 2 billion are still undernourished. In sub-Saharan

Africa, food demand has continued to exceed supply while micronutrient

def‌iciencies have aggravated the problem of food security (Food and Agriculture

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Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ.

Organization, 2013). Siegel, Ali, Srinivasan, Nugent, and Venkat Narayan (2014)

recently conducted a study on the supply:need ratio for vegetables and fruits and

reported that sub-Saharan African countries—including Eritrea (0.05), Chad

(0.09), Burkina Faso (0.10), Mozambique (0.12), and Ethiopia (0.12)—had the

greatest shortages. This particularly affects women and children in the region.

Poor maternal and child dietary habits, poor household economic status leading

to the inability to obtain nutritious food, as well as poor maternal education and

awareness of sources of critical nutrients in food are some of the predominant

causes of undernutrition (Bellete, 2005). Improving and diversifying agricultural

production, notably with vegetables and legumes, coupled with education on

healthy nutrition, good eating habits, food preparation, and safe handling are

effective strategies for overcoming malnutrition and chronic diet-related diseases

such as excess weight and obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular

diseases (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2007a). Additionally, this can

contribute to poverty alleviation through additional income from sales and

increased employment opportunities (Schreinemachers, Nagaraj, Hughes, &

Keatinge, 2014). However, all such interventions rely on a policy environment

benef‌icial to horticulture if they are to be effective. Such policies, for example,

include specif‌ic regional legislation that would be favorable to the easy release

and quality maintenance of the seed of improved varieties. This is being pursued

successfully at present by the African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA) and

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It remains evident that

the older colonial legislation regarding variety release remaining in law in many

countries, though appropriate for f‌ield crops such as maize, is most inappropriate

for crops with only small national markets. Such is usually the case with

vegetables such as tomato, cabbage, and indigenous vegetables. This discourages

investment by the private sector in developing the horticultural seed sector.

Likewise, as use of input levels into agriculture such as fertilizer and irrigation

water is much lower in Africa than in other comparable parts of the world, policy

opportunities to encourage the use of local water associations and the promulga-

tion of appropriate fertilizer stockists are urgently required. Twomlow et al.

(2011) have clearly indicated that even small amounts of good quality fertilizer

and seed can substantially improve productivity in f‌ield crops and this f‌inding

will be just as true for vegetables and legumes. Likewise, Woltering, Pasternak,

and Ndjeunga (2011) have demonstrated that solar pumping and trickle irrigation

can be the key to successful market gardening in the Sahelian region of West

Africa. Policy initiatives to encourage the better use of such inputs have the

potential to substantially improve the horticultural sector.

Methods, Limitations, and Bias

This synthesis article highlights major efforts, achievements, lessons learned,

challenges, and gaps in the process of mainstreaming nutrient-dense vegetables

and legumes—especially those traditionally referred to infamously as “orphaned

crops“—into production, utilization, and marketing systems for food, nutrition,

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