The Production of African Indigenous Vegetables in Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture: A Comparative Analysis of Case Studies from Benin, Kenya and South Africa

African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) comprise an enormous range of species that are consumed throughout the continent (FAO, 1988; Grubben and Denton, 2004). A number of studies have recorded an impressive diversity of species with known vegetable use in various countries. For example, across Kenya there is knowledge on the use of 210 species (Maundu, 1996), and in Benin surveys from an ongoing project involving two of the authors of this chapter have recorded 250 species so far (unpublished data).