Plants and Plant Products in Local Markets Within Benin City and Environs

Abstract

The vulnerability of agriculture systems in Africa to climate change is directly and indirectly affecting the availability and diversity of plants and plant products available in local markets. In this chapter, markets in Benin City and environs were assessed to document the availability of plants and plant products. Markets were grouped into urban, suburban, and rural with each group having four markets. Majority of the plant and plant product vendors were women and 88 plant species belonging to 42 families were found. Their scientific and common names were documented as well as the parts of the plant and associated products available in the markets. Most of the plant and plant products found in local markets belong to major plant families. Urban markets had the highest diversity of plants and plant products. Three categories of plants and plant products were documented. Around 67% of the plants and plant products were categorized as whole plant/plant parts, 28% as processed plant parts, while 5% as reprocessed plant/plant parts. It was revealed that 86% of these plants are used as foods, 11% are for medicinal purposes, while 3% is used for other purposes. About 35% of plants and plant products across the markets were fruits, which is an indication that city and environs are a rich source of fruits. The local knowledge and practices associated with the plants and plant products can contribute towards formulating a strategic response for climate change impacts on agriculture, gender, poverty, food security, and plant diversity.

Factors driving the acceptance of genetically modified food crops in Ghana

“…Patency and intellectual property rights is an especially important considerations for the commercialization of GM crops and may influence how locals view the crop (Ogwu, 2020(Ogwu, , 2023Ogwu et al, 2022Ogwu et al, , 2023Osawaru and Ogwu, 2020). Our result is interesting considering that food patent is often not a hot topic in Ghana.…”

Lassa fever in Nigeria: Social and Ecological Risk Factors Exacerbating Transmission and Sustainable Management Strategies

“…the southern region has the lengthiest wet season usually from March to October and the highest annual rainfall in the country with about 2,000 mm and can get up to 4,000 mm in the coastal plains. The disparities in the climate are determined by the interaction of the southwest monsoon winds and the dry and mostly dusty harmattan northeasterly winds which blow from across the Sahara [49][50][51][52].…”

“…Storage of food is a major problem faced by farmers, and those in rural settlements are more affected because they do not have the knowledge and access to certain handling and storage processes. According to Abdullahi, et al [25]; Osawaru and Ogwu [52]; Ogwu [91] in most rural settlements in West Africa, food products are sun-dried in the open along the roads (a typical example is the sun drying of cocoa seeds) as a means of increasing the food and food product shelf life and also for the transformation of the produce (an example is sun drying of yams and plantains chips for yam flour and cassava flour respectively). This practice encourages contamination of food as they are exposed to environmental elements and increases the chances of rodent infestation thereby increasing the chances of Lassa fever transmission.…”

Morphology and phylogenetic relationships of five chili cultivars from Sumatra, Indonesia

“…Morphological characterization based on qualitative traits of crops is a very crucial first step in any crop improvement and breeding program [2][3][4]. Parental purity judgement and varietal identification are important factors for the release of genotypes [4,5]. Cultivars can be identified and differentiated based on differences in morphology of seed, seedling and grown-up plants [6].…”