Review of the work of the African Orphan Crop Consortium
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Milling & Grain |
| Year of publication | 2018 February |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | International collaboration empowering African scientists to use state of the art genetic techniques for breeding traditional African crops to end malnutrition and adapt to climate change. There are around 352,000 flowering plants species in the world. Out of these over 5,000 have been used by humans for food production, about 120 are nationally important. Three crops stand out as major global crops (rice, wheat, maize) provide 68 percent of human calories. Over the years there has been debate about whether to concentrate funding on optimising a few major crops or spread the funding to cover the development of a greater diversity of minor crops. Sometimes these are described as ‘orphan crops’ neglected by breeders because they are not cash crops. These crops have desirable traits for resilience in the face of climate change…Read more. |
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