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Bambara Groundnut is a Climate-Resilient Crop: How Could a Drought-Tolerant and Nutritious Legume Improve Community Resilience in the Face of Climate Change?

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Sustainable Solutions for Food Security

Abstract

Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.; www.bamyield.org) is a crop similar in morphology and growth habit to groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.). It was also historically largely displaced by groundnut upon the latter’s introduction to sub-Saharan Africa from Latin America (Sprent et al. 2010). Bambara groundnut nevertheless still holds local importance in West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa and even Southeast Asia (Fig. 8.1). It is held in high esteem for its nutritional qualities by the consumer and its drought tolerance by the farmer (Tables 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3; Fig. 8.2). It could therefore be promoted in areas that are currently drought prone as well as in areas where climate change projections show an increased frequency and intensity in droughts as well as unpredictable rainfall patterns.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crops For the Future, Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia

    Aryo Feldman

  2. Crops For the Future, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia

    Wai Kuan Ho

  3. Faculty of Science, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia

    Festo Massawe

  4. Crop Genetics, South Labs, Plant and Crop Sciences, Biosciences, Sutton Bonington Campus, University of Nottingham, Leicestershire, UK

    Sean Mayes

  5. Biotechnology, Breeding and Seed Systems, Crops For the Future, Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia

    Sean Mayes

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  1. Aryo Feldman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St Johns, NL, Canada

    Atanu Sarkar

  2. KPMG, New Delhi, India

    Suman Ranjan Sensarma

  3. School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Gary W. vanLoon

1 Electronic Supplementary Material

This video highlights international, crop breeding and field evaluation of a drought-tolerant, tropical legume, bambara groundnut. First, you can see the experimental field site in an ex-palm oil estate in Crops For the Future, Malaysia, which coordinates multi-site trials around West and Southern Africa, and Southeast Asia. Seeds are harvested from pods that bury themselves in the soil as a mechanism of stress avoidance. The high level of diversity in the crop’s seeds and plants are characterised in terms of morphology, physiology, nutrition and DNA. The crop is an important source of non-animal protein in low-income countries, as well as providing other key nutritional properties like essential fatty acids. The crop is underutilised in most respects but it is currently attracting high-level scientific research, even outside of the Tropics, due to its unique plant, farm and food traits. These have led to it being dubbed as a ‘crop for the future’ (MP4 152,096 kb)

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Feldman, A., Ho, W.K., Massawe, F., Mayes, S. (2019). Bambara Groundnut is a Climate-Resilient Crop: How Could a Drought-Tolerant and Nutritious Legume Improve Community Resilience in the Face of Climate Change?. In: Sarkar, A., Sensarma, S., vanLoon, G. (eds) Sustainable Solutions for Food Security . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77878-5_8

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