Thumbnail Image

Compendium of forgotten foods in Africa

A companion publication for Integrating Africa’s forgotten foods for better nutrition

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Accra, Ghana ;

Pages 120 p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (stand-alone)

ISBN 978-92-5-137756-7

Synopsis (short abstract) The World Wide Fund for Nature defines a food system as “the complete set of people, institutions, activities, processes, and infrastructure involved in producing and consuming food for a given population.” (WWF, 2017). The food system has a bearing on human capital development, provision of jobs, industrial growth, structural transformation and ecosystem services. As in many other parts of the world, the landscape of African food systems is fraught with fragility and fails to deliver on these key developmental outcomes. Transforming food systems in Africa is an imperative for the realization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which now has a delivery timeline of less than a decade.A sustainability framework must underguard any attempts at food systems transformations. For example, Africa must provide food and nutrition security to its rapidly expanding population in perpetuity without engendering adverse environmental, social and economic externalities. The massive endowment of the continent with extensive arable land and diverse agro-ecosystems teeming with rich flora makes sustainable food systems a realizable dream. Indeed, Indigenous communities across Africa have used a number of locally adapted crops for millennia mainly for nutrition, medicinal and ornamental purposes. Unfortunately, many of these crops, have been progressively substituted with imported genotypes favoured by industrial agriculture. Pervasive monoculture of the exotic crops and increasingly standardized diets have contributed in part to utter denigration of the indigenous crops, earning them the appellation of "forgotten crops.”

Last updated date 27/05/2024.

Cite this content as:

FAO. 2024. Compendium of forgotten foods in Africa – A companion publication for Integrating Africa’s forgotten foods forbetter nutrition. Accra.

https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5044en

Read on Google Books and buy online

Language English

Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Integrating Africa’s forgotten foods for better nutrition
    A companion publication for the Compendium of forgotten foods
    2024
    Also available in:
    Africa is home to a diversity of indigenous food crops that are locally adapted and less fastidious than exotic cultivars. Indigenous foods are foods of plant and animal origin that naturally exist in specific agro-ecological domains and are produced and consumed as part of traditional diets. Although indigenous foods have the potential to sustainably provide the much needed dietary nutrients to various communities across Africa, they have suffered progressive loss of cultural image, denigration, and utter neglect, being largely substituted with exotic foods. Consequently, they have earned the unenviable appellations of "forgotten", "neglected" or "orphan" foods due to the fact that they have received relatively little or no policy and research attention – especially towards their genetic improvement and value chain development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    International Conference on Domestication and Commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products in Agroforestry Systems 1996
    Also available in:
    The International Conference on Domestication and Commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products in Agroforestry Systems, hosted by ICRAF, was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 19 to 23 February 1996. This was the first world-level meeting to be held exclusively to draw attention to issues dealing with domestication and commercialization of non-timber forest products in agroforestry systems.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Conservation, Management and Utilization of Plant Gums, Resins, and Essential Oils: Proceedings of a Regional conference for Africa held in Nairobi, Kenya 6 - 10 October 1997 1999
    Also available in:
Show more

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.