ABSTRACT
Many leafy food plants are important on a local scale while remaining unknown elsewhere. A unique feature of the plant that is very pertinent to the humid tropics is that the gourd's waxy coating preserves the food inside from attack by microorganisms, thus allowing the vegetable to be stored for as long as one year without refrigeration. Several other crops that serve as principal sources of food for millions of people in the tropics. In fact it offers a nutritional value equivalent to soybean, with 40 percent protein and 17 percent edible oil, plus vitamins and other nutrients. Finally, consider a form of agriculture that may prove to be one of the fastest-growing sectors of all agriculture in the foreseeable future. It may also turn out to represent the most promising means to grow large amounts of that critical form of food, animal protein.
