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Dialogue between (and within) cultures

is essential for the world’s food security

Marcela Villarreal, Director, Office of Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development,

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

oday, some 800 million people are chronically

undernourished. The world population is expected

to increase significantly, up to 9.1 billion people

in 2050 from the current 7.3 billion, and food produc-

tion would need to increase by 60 per cent to meet their

needs. However, under current trends in climate change

and increasing pressures on natural resources, it may

simply not be possible to address these growing needs

with current food production systems and crops.

In order to feed the world in the future it may be essential

to use currently underutilized or neglected crops, which

can adapt better to extreme weather conditions and can

grow in marginal lands. However, a dialogue between (and

within) cultures is necessary to retrieve the traditional

or local knowledge necessary to use these crops. As local

systems that hold the wealth of knowledge associated to

the cultivation, conservation and use of these underuti-

lized species are gender-based, a true dialogue within the

culture, specifically between men and women, may also be

necessary to fully retrieve the knowledge.

What are neglected crops and why are they important?

Throughout human history, around 7,000 plant species (out

of the approximately 250,000 existing plant species in the

world) have been either cultivated or gathered for consump-

tion. However, today the vast majority of food consumed by

humans comes from only four species (rice, wheat, maize

and potatoes) and only around 120 species are cultivated.

The others tend to be neglected or underutilized.

Neglected crops and wild foods are a main source of food

during times of stress, crisis or famine. Some are rich in

nutrients that are absent from cereal-rich diets and are thus

important complements to farmers’ food consumption. For

example, in rural Ethiopia, wild berries provide vitamins

to the vitamin-deficient Ethiopian cereal diet, especially for

children.

Some are important sources of household income

and in some areas they contribute substantially to poverty

reduction

and to communities’ livelihoods. The poor rely

more heavily on these foods.

Some of these crops or foodstuffs grow in difficult envi-

ronments, which are unfit for other crops, are adapted to

local agroecological conditions and marginal lands and

adapt more easily to extreme weather conditions. They

contribute to maintain diversity and thus to more stable

agroecosystems.

These characteristics of some underuti-

lized species become precious for food security in times of

climate change.

Why have neglected crops been neglected? The few crops

that dominate the world food supply are supported by formal

research institutions and universities, seed supply systems,

production and post-harvest technologies and extension

systems. In the face of impending food shortages, the inter-

national agricultural research system invested massively in

increasing productivity and production, in order to feed

a very quickly growing population – the so-called demo-

graphic explosion – in the 1960s and 1970s. This system

strongly favoured increasing yields and promoted mono-

crops. Underutilized or neglected crops did not get the

advantage of international and national research systems,

Dialogue between (and within) cultures is necessary to retrieve the traditional

or local knowledge necessary to reap the benefits of underutilized crops

Image: Mauro Bottaro

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