The Introduction and Spread of Maize in Africa

Abstract

Linguistic evidence strongly suggests that maize penetrated the interior of tropical Africa from the coastal regions, but the timing and mode of its introduction cannot be established. The commonly repeated assertion that the Portuguese brought maize to tropical Africa from the New World cannot be documented at this juncture, although they seem certainly to have had economic motives for doing so.Maize was probably introduced to tropical Africa at more than one point and at different times. Maize was widely grown along the coast from the River Gambia to Sâo Tomé, around the mouth of the River Congo, and possibly in Ethiopia, in the sixteenth century. There is reference to it in all these places, in Zanzibar, and around the mouth of the River Ruvuma in the seventeenth century; and it was not only mentioned but described as an important foodstuff and a major provision for slave ships between Liberia and the Niger Delta during the same century.Much less information is available for the interior, but it clearly seems to have been unknown in Uganda as late as 1861. Until well within the present century, it was neither a major export nor a mainstay of the diet in most of eastern and central tropical Africa, the bulk of the areas where it is now of major importance.

Inbreeding drives maize centromere evolution

“…However, two African haplotype 2 inbreds, one tropical and one temperate, exhibit intermediate CEN10 CentC content and appear to not follow the overall trend. In the case of tropical TZI8, which may have been brought to Nigeria from the Americas by the Portuguese around 400 y ago (29) and whose nearest relative among the 915 sequenced HapMap3 lines (30) is a teosinte (TIL03; k2p = 0.007), the CentC reduction may be caused by a founder effect (i.e., lack of genetic diversity), possibly combined with selection for a CEN10-linked agronomic trait. In contrast, the relatively large genetic distance between South African line M162W and TZI8 (k2p = 0.012), in combination with the small distance (k2p = 0.002) to "American-derived" D1139 (31), suggest that M162W represents an independent introduction of a (possibly temperate) haplotype 2 CEN10 into South African germplasm.…”

Quality Protein Maize for Africa: Closing the Protein Inadequacy Gap in Vulnerable Populations

“…Of the 22 countries in the world where maize forms the highest percentage of energy in the national diet, 16 are in Africa (1). Relative to traditional crops such as sorghum and millet, maize is a relatively young staple food in Africa (2). After its introduction from New World explorers in the 16th century (3), maize quickly rooted itself as a main ingredient in local cuisine due to its relatively high grain yield, low labor requirements, and favorable storage characteristics (4).…”

Yields and accumulations of N and P in farmer-managed intercrops of maize–pigeonpea in semi-arid Africa

“…Maize is a major staple food in Sub-Saharan Africa where 95% of maize production is consumed by humans (McCann 2005;Miracle 1965). In large parts of the sub-continent, smallholder agricultural production has remained consistently low and food security is catastrophically low (Kumwenda 1998;Sanchez 2002).…”