ABOUT TAVI

Title of the project

TAIWAN-AFRICA VEGETABLE INITIATIVE (TAVI)

Project description

Although sub-Saharan Africa is a long way away from southern Taiwan, the two regions are forging stronger links through a project to build more resilient foundations for Africa’s food systems.

The World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg), an international nonprofit agricultural research institute with headquarters in Taiwan, was awarded a grant from the Taiwan Council of Agriculture (COA) and the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to lead the Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative (TAVI), a three-year project to conserve and use African vegetable biodiversity to address malnutrition by increasing the production and consumption of nutritious vegetables.

The ex-situ conservation status and knowledge of African vegetables and their wild relatives are low, and many of these crops are threatened with extinction due to a lack of awareness of their potential for agriculture and nutrition. Thus, there is an urgent need to invest in the conservation of vegetable germplasm in Africa’s major diversity zones. To this end, four areas of high diversity have been identified in Africa and will serve as the locations for the project implementation, namely Benin, Madagascar, Tanzania and Eswatini. The activities will be carried out in Benin, through a collaboration between World Veg, the University of Abomey-Calavi (UAC) and the Laboratory of Genetics, Biotechnology and Seed Sciences (GBioS).

General objectives

The Taiwan-Africa Vegetable Initiative (TAVI) project aims at addressing issues of plant genetic resource conservation to create a strong and more resilient foundation for food systems in Africa.

Specific objectives

TAVI has three objectives:

Objective 1. Upgrade genebanks of Eswatini’s National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) and the World Vegetable Center’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa in Tanzania.

Objective 2. Rescue genetic resources of traditional African vegetables by collecting at least 4,800 landraces and crop wild relatives from 25 species in Eswatini, Tanzania, Madagascar and Benin, which are “hotspots” of vegetable biodiversity in Africa.

Objective 3. Improve nutritional content of Eswatini’s school meals as part of the National School Feeding Program (NSFP). Field-tested school and home garden interventions and links to champion farmers to supply schools with nutrient-dense African vegetables can bring more nutritious diets to students and families.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Year 1

A1. Collect accessions of 25 vegetables in the different agroecological zone of Benin

A2. Annual course: Strengthen capacity of scientists and students on the conservation and use of African vegetable biodiversity

A3. Develop regional action plan on conservation and use of vegetable biodiversity.

Year 2 and 3

A4. Complementary collecting missions

A5. Accessions collected in 2022 phenotyped and seed multiplied for conservation and distribution

A6. Annual course: Strengthen capacity of scientists and students on the conservation and use of African vegetable biodiversity

A7. African Vegetable Germplasm Platform established to connect to a regional action plan on conservation and use of vegetable biodiversity.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The key results expected are mentioned as follow:

– Capacity strengthened of scientist and students on conservation and use of African vegetable biodiversity

– Regional action plan on conservation and use of African vegetable biodiversity

1200 accessions collected in the vegetable biodiversity different agroecological zone of Benin

INTERVENTION ZONE

The collecting missions will be carried out in all the phytogeographic zones of Benin (Guinean, Sudano-Guinean and Sudanian zones) whereas the multiplication and phenotyping activities of the collected germplasm will be carried out in four sites of seeds multiplication, located in Sekou, Massi, Zogbodomey and Dan.