Eswatini to Conserve Indigenous Vegetables Through the Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative

Eswatini Daily News
By: Nomzamo Jiyane
10 February 2022

Eswatini through the agreement between the World Vegetable Centre (WVC) and Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative (TAVI) which was signed last year October 2022 by the Minister of Agriculture. The project aims to safeguard vegetable biodiversity for food and nutrition security in Eswatini and Africa as a whole.

Mduduzi Malambe from World Vegetable Centre says the three year project will conserve and use indigenous vegetable biodiversity to address malnutrition by increasing the production and consumption of nutritious vegetables.

The project will involve the collection, categorization and conservation of Eswatini’s vegetable genetic resources, contribute to infrastructure improvement of the National Plant Genetic Resource Centre at Malkerns and support the Home Grown School Feeding initiative aimed at providing nutritious food to school children.

Currently agriculturist (balimisi) are being trained and educated on how to grow the vegetables and how farmers can store their seeds at home. Some of the seeds will be collected from the  communities to promote the farming of the indigenous vegetable. Neighbouring countries like Tanzania, Madagascar and Benin are already implementing the project.

Most of the indigenous vegetables are known as weeds which are destroyed in the fields. Some of the vegetables under this initiative include imbuya ( amaranthus hybridus), ligusha (corchorus olitorius), chuchuza (Bidens pilosa), inkhakha (mormodica balsaminal) and inshubaba ( lagenaria sinensis).