Yam and cowpea diversity management by farmers in the Guinea-Sudan transition zone of Benin

Abstract

The maintenance and utilization of crop genetic diversity is important to ensure food security. The relative importance of yam and cowpea varieties and the influence of the socio-cultural and local economy context on the diversity maintained were analysed in Benin. Whereas the diversity is large, some varieties were rare, other ones on the way of being abandoned or already lost. Socio-cultural as well as economic and agronomic characteristics explained why some of them were still maintained. For example, the early-maturing yam variety Laboko was planted by most farmers to have tubers available in time for religious purposes, and some specific cowpea varieties played a role in the funeral of the parents in law. Farmers' preferences were translated into criteria they use to appreciate varieties. The diversity of the varieties sold on the market and their availability over time reflect farmers' strategies and conservation practices. The large price differences between varieties confirm the variation in quality as perceived by consumers. The most widely grown yam variety, Florido, is available on the market throughout the year but has a very low price. Market price differences among varieties are much smaller for cowpea than for yam. The processes of loss and displacement of some local varieties are described and the need for conservation is addressed. Different factors that may influence the level of varietal diversity in these crops, like the need to synchronize harvesting with high market prices, were analysed in depth. As opposed to mono-disciplinary approaches of scientists to farmers' problems and constraints, farmers show an inter-or trans-disciplinary behaviour and express their preferences through multi-criteria processes.

Physicochemical Properties of Processed Aerial Yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) and Sensory Properties of Paste (Amala) Prepared with Cassava Flour

“…The third area includes the Caribbean, Mexico, and parts of Central America (FAO, 1999). Yams serve as a major contributor to food security in West Africa (Zannou, 2006), but out of the over 600 known yam species, only seven are mostly consumed (Jayakody et al, 2007). These include Dioscorea rotundata Poir (White yam), Dioscorea cayenensis (Yellow yam), Dioscorea alata (Water yam), Dioscorea bulbifera (Aerial yam), Dioscorea esculenta, Dioscorea praehensalis (Bush yam) and Dioscorea dumetorum (Bitter yam).…”

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) responses to the environmental variability in the Guinea Sudan zone of Benin

“…Most of the D. alata varieties (65%) yielded more than 2 kg/heap. The most widely cultivated D. alata variety Florido (Zannou et al, 2004) did not perform as well as the other D. alata varieties. This result suggests that the choice of this variety Florido by many farmers is not related to its high yield performance, but to the quality of the tuber, storability and perhaps other agronomic characteristics.…”

“…In addition to its economic and nutritional values, yam also plays a significant role in the cultural life of rural communities in Benin (Zannou et al, 2004;Zannou et al, 2007). Yam production and yield patterns are of economic importance to the livelihood of farmers in the region (Oluwasusi and Tijani, 2013).…”

“…E-mail: afiozannou@yahoo.com. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Doing research with farmers and working on the agronomical and physiological constraints to develop adaptive technology emphasised the need to really understand the genetic diversity of crop traits (Zannou et al 2004). Recent studies have also shown the necessity to put more emphasis on farm management of genetic resources (Zoundjihékpon et al, 1997;Pardey et al, 1999;Jarvis et al, 2000).…”

“…The genotype by environment interaction is a phenomenon in which the relative performance of genotypes varies with environmental conditions and is attributed to the dependence of expression of underlying genes or quantitative trait loci on environments (Yin et al, 2004). As working and doing research with farmers for better technology development is a core principle of the Convergence of Sciences approach (Zannou et al, 2004), this paper aimed at characterizing the different varieties of yam in Benin using different morphological and agronomic techniques.…”