ABSTRACT
Indigenous (or traditional) vegetables have historically played an important role in farming and consumption systems across Africa. Many of these species – for example, amaranth (Amaranthus spp.), African nightshade (Solanum scabrum), African eggplant (S. aethiopicum), jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius) and bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) – are particularly suitable for resource-poor farmers as they are easy to grow and require minimal external inputs, unlike most exotic vegetables (Opole et al, 1991). They are also an integral component of many traditional dishes. However, modernization and the progression of the market economy in Africa have meant that scientific agronomic research and development has shifted over to exotic crops suitable for export (Weinberger and Lumpkin, 2007). This may have resulted in the notion that African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) are grown by subsistence farmers only – ‘hunger food’ that people consume in times of need and drought (Humphry et al, 1993), or as a safety net during social unrest and war (Smith et al, 1996a, 1996b), or as important contributors to dietary requirements of isolated communities (Grivetti and Ogle, 2000).
