Universities urged to champion indigenous crops for food and climate

High Institutions of learning in the region have been challenged to adopt African traditional crops and vegetables for food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability.

The call comes at a time when the world faces growing food insecurity and climate instability. Experts now say these crops shape relevant research agendas to inspiring entrepreneurship, innovation, and community-based learning in universities.

Prof. Victoria Wambui Ngumi, Vice Chancello Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), said universities must use their research power to bridge indigenous knowledge with modern science and transfer that knowledge into communities through education.

“Orphan crops are not just plants. They are solutions. They tackle malnutrition, create jobs, restore degraded land, and support climate-resilient livelihoods but they remain underutilized because our institutions have not yet fully embraced them,” she said in as speech read on her behalf by Acting VC Prof. Robert Kinyua.

“We must bring these crops out of obscurity and into our classrooms, our farms, and our policies.”

This emerged during the opening of a workshop that brought together agricultural scientists and education experts from five African countries and Belgium.

The event, hosted under the European Union-funded ORPHAN Project, emphasized the untapped power of traditional African crops often dismissed as “orphan crops” in solving Africa’s most persistent challenges.

The VC called on stakeholders to invest in more researchers to continue to lead Africa’s food revolution.

“To our students, you are the heart of this project. Use this opportunity to become ambassadors of change. Let us turn these ‘orphan’ crops into cornerstones of a self-reliant, resilient Africa,” Prof. Ngumi said.

She called for institutions to combine academic mobility, research collaboration, and community engagement.

“By training youth in these crops, we are cultivating resilience. I advocated for school feeding programs and agricultural clubs that incorporate orphan crops to change young people's perceptions early on,” she stated.

The VC also called on education policymakers to support curriculum reforms that integrate indigenous crops into agriculture, nutrition, and environmental science lessons from primary to tertiary level.

“Several barriers including limited seed access, poor market infrastructure, lack of consumer awareness, and insufficient policy support,” she stated.

She said indigenous foods are rich in history, nutrients, and resilience and they grow right in African soils calling on universities with agricultural faculties, to leverage on technology to mainstream orphan crops, developing standardized cultivation and processing techniques, and integrating them into student-led projects and curricula.

Prof. Kévin Kouamé Koffi, the project’s coordinator from Ivory Coast’s University Nangui Abrogoua the initiative seeks to promote new scientists trained in orphan crops, food technology, plant breeding, and nutrition.

“We are building capacity for African solutions by African minds. We want students not only to research these crops but to build businesses, technologies, and policies around them.,” he said.

Prof. Koffi further said African countries suffer from “hidden hunger” micronutrient deficiencies that often go unnoticed but affect cognitive development and productivity. Of the 36 most affected countries globally, 31 are in Africa.

“Orphan crops are rich in iron, zinc, vitamins, and antioxidants. They are the medicine we’ve ignored for too long,” he said.

He called on governments to prioritize these crops in their national agricultural strategies and support research funding and innovation hubs within universities.

“We need investment in processing equipment, seed banks, farmer training centers, and market linkages. And we need students to be part of this innovation,” said Prof. Koffi.

The ORPHAN Project (Intra-Africa Mobility for High Skilled Scientists and Entrepreneurs on Orphan Crops in Higher Education for Accelerated Climate Change Solutions in Africa) has already enrolled 11 PhD and 7 master’s students from five countries.

While research and innovation are critical, the real change will begin when African children learn about orphan crops not just as poor man’s food, but as nutritious, climate-smart superfoods that define African identity.

A proposed strategy from the workshop included encouraging agribusiness incubators in universities to focus on orphan crop products from gluten-free fonio flour and Bambara nut milk to drought-resistant vegetable seeds.

One of its goals is to harmonize training and research agendas across participating universities, ensuring knowledge flows beyond national borders.

According Prof. Mary Abukutsa, ORHAN Project lead for Kenya, a food systems expert emphasized that education institutions must design inclusive programs that leverage local knowledge, empower grassroots communities, and create viable markets.

"Universities must work with rural women as co-educators and co-innovators. They hold the secrets to seed preservation, crop diversity, and cooking methods that modern science needs,” she said.