Kew's work in Africa

African Wild Harvest

The work of African Wild Harvest focuses on the sustainable use of traditional and wild food plants for improving the diet of rural Africans. In Africa, traditional food systems maintain high levels of biodiversity and dietary diversity, both essential for environmental and human health. In recent years, the desire to ‘modernise’ by rural and urban populations has resulted in the Nutrition Transistion away from diverse diets of the past to those high in refined oils and sugars. To fulfil the need for these highly refined foods, farmers have moved away from growing many crops to only a handful (monocropping) further reducing available dietary diversity. This has damaged human and environmental health, through the increases in obesity and diabetes, and a reduced biodiversity.

In collaboration with the Kenya Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge based at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), we are working with the BIDII and TATRO Women’s Groups in Western Kenya to develop a methodology for the conservation of Indigenous Knowledge in the use of traditional and wild food plants. This involves both the conservation of indigenous knowledge using methodology developed by scientists at Kew and NMK, and the management of seeds from underutilised species in community seed banks from one season to the next.

As drought becomes common place in Kenya, this type of support to communities is vitally important in the management of their traditional food plants, many of which are drought tolerant.

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