New video we made with Crop Trust on Farmer-genebank benefits
The potential in linking farmer groups with national genebanks.
It was a huge pleasure to make this video with the exceptionally talented Luis Salazar and Neil Palmer. An inspiring story with some amazing teams - plus you get to see me looking exhausted between travel plans.
This video explores some wonderful stories and images from Crop Trust’s work in Ghana and Kenya, capturing farmer and consumer responses to accessing rich crop diversity from national genebanks.
For instance, this work increased access to local Bambara groundnut varieties from 2 to 20, allowing farmers a rich diversity to trial for their growing, market and food security needs.
“The five types of Bambara groundnut we have selected in this community have been exceptional”, Fatima Salam, farmer, Ghana.
Bamabara groundnut is just one example of hardy, nutritious and culturally valued crops that this project is building diversity around. This video also shows sorghum and African leafy vegetables, but the project covered many more
“We have been able to restore some of the accessions that farmers have lost over the years” Peterson Wambugu, Genetic Resources Research Institute (GeRRI), Kenya
“The genebank has made us know that we can plant different varieties of sorghum that can be used to make chapattis, mandazis, somosas, ugali and we can make popcorn with the white variety” Mabel Sherri, farmer, Kenya.
This example from Mabel also shows the range of income generating methods that bringing a diversity of varieties can bring.
“The end game of all of this is to ensure that these varieties are readily available and that our farmers get the right varieties they need”, Soloman Edwin Nkrumah, CSIR-Plant Genetic Resources Research Institute, Ghana
This is not just a project, we’re setting a long-term vision.
Huge thanks to Jaspreet Stamm for helping us make the video to tell this story.