February 6, 2021
Resilience in action: Small-scale farmers raise their own insurance by growing different types of vegetables. If they lose one crop, there are others to fall back on. Safeguarding biodiversity and local landraces helps to ensure vegetable producers will have more choices for nutritious and climate-resilient crops to include in their farm rotations and garden plots. Photo: Eswatini Climate Coalition
Although sub-Saharan Africa is a long way away from southern Taiwan, the two regions will soon forge stronger links through a new project to build more resilient foundations for Africa’s food systems.
The World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg), an international nonprofit agricultural research institute with headquarters in Taiwan, was awarded a 191M NTD grant from the Taiwan Council of Agriculture (COA) and the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to lead the Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative (TAVI), a three-year project to conserve and use African vegetable biodiversity to address malnutrition by increasing the production and consumption of nutritious vegetables.
Sub-Saharan Africa faces a “triple burden” of malnutrition: About 30% of children under 5 are stunted, nearly half of all women of reproductive age suffer from anemia, and 28% of adults are overweight or obese. At the same time, climate change and a rapidly growing young population challenge governments across the region to meet the nutritional needs of their people.
The Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative (TAVI) aims to address some of these underlying issues to create stronger, more resilient foundations for food systems in Eswatini, Tanzania, Madagascar and Benin.
Safeguarding vegetable biodiversity in Africa is essential for food and nutrition security. “Many African traditional vegetables and their wild relatives are in danger of being lost through a lack of awareness about their benefits for agriculture and nutrition,” said Dr. Maarten van Zonneveld, World Vegetable Center Genebank Manager. “Taiwan COA and MOFA recognized the urgency to invest in germplasm conservation in this region, and we are grateful for their forward-thinking support.”
Eswatini is in particular need of healthier diets. It has the 12th-lowest life expectancy in the world and more than one-third of its population is under the age of 14. In response, the Eswatini government has implemented a zero-hunger strategy and a national school feeding program to improve nutrition. TAVI will further support the government with their initiative by booting the supply of fresh and nutritious African vegetables to diversify home and school meals.
“WorldVeg aims to reach out and share its expertise where it is most needed, and TAVI is making that possible,” said Dr. Yin-fu Chang, Deputy Director General, World Vegetable Center.
TAVI has three objectives:
Objective 1. Upgrade genebanks of Eswatini’s National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) and the World Vegetable Center’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa in Tanzania.
Objective 2. Rescue genetic resources of traditional African vegetables by collecting at least 4,800 landraces and crop wild relatives from 25 species in Eswatini, Tanzania, Madagascar and Benin, which are “hotspots” of vegetable biodiversity in Africa.
Objective 3. Improve nutritional content of Eswatini’s school meals as part of the National School Feeding Program (NSFP). Field-tested school and home garden interventions and links to champion farmers to supply schools with nutrient-dense African vegetables can bring more nutritious diets to students and families.
Plans for 2021 include upgrading of the two genebanks, training scientists and students in conservation methods, developing a regional action plan for conservation and use of African vegetable biodiversity, collecting at least 1,200 samples in the four countries, and distributing more than 5,000 seed kits with quality vegetable seed to schools, champion farmers, and communities in Eswatini.
The project opened on 1 January 2021 and will conclude 31 December 2023.
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