Policy needs for indigenous foods and food security in Africa

Several relevant policy platforms link biodiversity, indigenous food crops with food security. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is one of them, stating that “indigenous peoples have the right to enjoy as a collective people or as individuals all human rights and fundamental freedoms including the right to food that is relevant to their food choices, food preparation and acquisition”. With globalization, urbanization and high-input –high yielding agriculture, the world has undergone changes in food production, procurement and consumption. In Sub-Saharan Africa, policies subsidizing inputs and markets of crops like maize, sunflower and soyabean, has seen the replacement and in some cases disappearance of indigenous crops like sorghum, millets, certain leguminous and oil seed plants. These new crops have changed diets and rendered rural households vulnerable to seasonal food and nutrition insecurity. Referred to as “exotic plant species or high value-crops” in some cases they have come to completely replace indigenous food crops. Empirical evidence and initiatives such as the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Biodiversity for Nutrition, Dietary Diversity and health projects, and the Nyeleni Declaration on Food Sovereignty call for research, practical interventions and policy development on indigenous food crops. Why has the production of indigenous and traditional food crops been ignored for so long in government policies and programmes. How can the impact of the phenomenon “land grabbing” the acquisition or long term lease of large areas of land by investors be regulated. Current understanding shows that giving away land in Sub-Saharan Africa implies huge opportunity costs, as it refocuses agriculture towards crops for export markets and not indigenous food crops, creating vulnerability to price shocks for the poor of the target countries.