African Vegetable Biodiversity Rescue Plan 2025 – 2035
Creators: name: World Vegetable Center
name: Editing: Nick Pasiecznik
name: Design And Layout: Wei-Ting Ho
Publisher: name: World Vegetable Center
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: FOOD SAFETY
subject: SUSTAINABILITY
subject: GENETIC RESOURCES
subject: CONSERVATION
subject: TRADITIONAL VEGETABLES
subject: BREEDING AIMS
subject: African food systems
subject: UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
subject: Vegetable biodiversity
subject: Conservation of African vegetables
subject: Vegetable species diversity
subject: Biodiversity loss
subject: Climate resilience
subject: Nutrition security
subject: Breeding programs
subject: Continental frameworks
subject: Local farming systems

description: If well integrated into the food systems of African countries, vegetables can contribute significantly to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, of zero hunger, no poverty, and climate action. But realizing this requires urgent investment and efforts to rescue, conserve and use African vegetable biodiversity. This is especially relevant in the identified ‘hotspots’ of vegetable biodiversity in the continent. However, vegetable biodiversity in Africa and around the world is under threat, because of climate change, urbanization, and homogenization of diets. Meanwhile, vegetable species and their wild relatives are very poorly conserved both in situ and ex situ, making up less than 10% of total global genebank accessions. This is a major concern, given how many vegetable species there are compared to cereals and other major crop groups. Losing this biodiversity means losing options for climate resilience and nutrition security for current and future generations. It is paramount to rescue and conserve this biodiversity before it is too late, and encourage its use in breeding programs and directly in farmers’ fields. This African Vegetable Biodiversity Rescue Plan has been developed to unlock the potential of African vegetable biodiversity, by simultaneously addressing supply, demand, and policy challenges. It is also aligned with global, continental and national frameworks that have components which aim to improve the rescue, conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. ‘African vegetables’ are those that are indigenous to the continent, or indigenized (introduced and adopted long ago), and are adapted to local farming systems and food needs after interaction with humans and the environment over many generations. They are suitable for integrating into more diversified farming systems that are more resilient to climate change, being hardy and highly nutritious, requiring limited space, growing on short rotations, and providing plenty of options for farmers, traders and processors to improve their livelihoods. Implementing this Rescue Plan will result in the genetic diversity of prioritized African vegetables and their wild relatives being salvaged and safeguarded through complementary ex situ and in situ activities, supported by national, regional and international policies. This diversity will in turn be actively used by farmers, breeders and researchers from African countries to increase the supply of nutrient-dense food. To increase demand, this Rescue Plan also calls for policy support to raise awareness, and to incorporate African vegetables in school feeding programs and homestead production. This Rescue Plan is an outcome of a process that started at the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, where there was a call for urgent action to rescue, conserved and use vegetable biodiversity. A study on the diversity and conservation status of African vegetables (van Zonneveld et al., 2021a) showed how little of Africa’s vegetable biodiversity is adequately conserved. The research also identified six ‘hotspots’ of vegetable biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa, and proposed priority actions for safeguarding these genetic resources for food and agriculture. A draft African Vegetable Biodiversity Rescue Plan was developed, and stakeholder consultations were organized to gather feedback from experts across the continent, including those from subregional plant genetic resources networks of the Southern Africa Development Community, West and Central Africa, and the Plant Genetic Resources Management Working Group under the Seed and Biotechnology Program of the African Union. The plan was validated at a workshop on 14–15 December 2023 in Mbabane, Eswatini, that brought together for the first time the three regional plant genetic resources networks in sub-Saharan Africa and national genebanks from 16 countries, presided over by Hon. Mandla Tshawuka, Eswatini Minister of Agriculture. This was followed by validation at the African Union Commission on 22–24 April 2024 in Addis Ababa. This Rescue Plan is a foundation stone, that has been jointly laid by many. And from this, using vegetables and their diversity, we will build a healthier and wealthier Africa, and that is more resilient to the climatic and economic shocks that are to come.