23435
0                       Seeds of Life: Women and
o1 s                    Agricultural Biodiversity in Africa
kgricultural development world-   Dolichos lablab  by their scientific
ide has caused, as one of its   names, and "lablab beans" in English),
down-sides, the replacement of native    which were cultivated by women, con-
plant species by marketable crops and a   stituted a good proportion of the har-
parallel reductioninthediversityofthe    vest. Njahe had, moreover, special
seed stock. The disappearance of plants   meaning for women, as the bean was
with potential medicinal uses, particu-   considered to increase fertility and to
larly in areas of high biodiversity like   have curative virtues for post-partum
tropical rain forests, has been head-   mothers. It was at the same time a
lined in recent years; but crowding out   quasi-sacred food. It grew on the O0
of the natural diversity of edible species   Donyo Sabuk mountain, the second
by standard, and sometimes genetically    most important dwelling place of the
altered, cash crops - and the replace-   Creator in Kikuyu religion, and it was
ment of "landraces' (indigenous plant   widely used in divination ceremonies.
types) by commercial farming - con-       Beans in Kenya are predominantly a
stitute an equally serious problem.    small landholder crop, largely farmed
Efforts are now being made to consti-   by women to feed their families. Tradi-
tute reserves and pools of threatened   tionally, women tended to grow mul-
varieties of food crops. Indigenous   tiple varieties on the same field - and
knowledge of edible plants is one key   to conserve multiple seed stocks - as
"pool" of biodiversity in Africa - and    a hedge against disease and unpredict-
one in which women play a vital role.  able  climate.  Local  dishes,  like
"githeri" and "irio," also were based on
Bean farming in Kenya                  multiple types of beans.
No. 23
August 2000                   Bean farming among the Kikuyu in
Kenya provides a case in point. Avail-
able  evidence  indicates  that  in    IK Notes reports periodically on Indig-
enous Knowledge (IK) initiatives in
precolonial times a large variety of dif-    Sub-Saharan Africa. It is published by
ferent bean species was cultivated in    the Africa Region's Knowledge and
Learning Center as part of an evolving
the Kenyan uplands. Beans moreover       1   atesi   ewe   h    ol
I K partnership between the World
constituted a critical element of the    Bank, communities, NGOs, develop-
diet of rural people, furnishing a rich  ment institutions and multilateral orga-
source of, protein to complement maize   nizations. The views expressed in this
J. .. .........sourceofproteintocomplementmaize             article are those of the authors and
consumption and other available food-    should not be attributed to the World
AC<t%1 >                             .            . .    .       Bank Group or its partners in this ini-
O s-V-X-<x X &      ~stuffs. In particular, the varieties of in-  Bn   ru  risprnr nti  l
stuffs. In particular, thevarieties of in- 'tiative. A webpage on IK is available at
digenous black beans termed "njahe"      http://www.worldbank.org/aftdr/ik/
in Kikuyu (largely Lablab niger and      default.htm



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These patterns began to change in colonial times. The Brit-   sure a practice of "one variety per location" - generally an
ish administration was principally interested in increasing    exportable variety. Pure or sorted beans were priced at two or
maize production, which provided the least expensive supply   three times above mixed crops.
of food to feed railroad construction workers, and in intro-
ducing other cash crops like cotton and sisal to ensure tax    The costs of monocropping
payments. The strategy developed for advancing this agenda
included providing financial incentives and favorable pricing    The phenomenon had real consequences for nutrition, for
for maize cultivation, on the one hand; and, on the other, in-   agricultural biodiversity in the Kenyan highlands, for soil fer-
troducing new varieties of white and red beans with export  tility, and for women farmers themselves. Replacement of
potential (to Europe in particular) in order to replace the    beans by maize in local diets began a downward spiral in the
njahe and other native species. Though a considerable vari-  food intake of the rural population which, while scarcely at-
ety of bean species was experimented with over the years by   tributable only to this factor, has continued unabated. At the
the colonial agricultural extension service, few  proved   same time, elimination of many of the multiple varieties of
adapted to Kenyan conditions or acceptable in local diets.   beans cultivated in precolonial times had, for parallel effect,
Those that did - Canadian kidney, rose coco and Phaseolus   impoverishment of the agricultural genetic stock, developed
vulgaris, in particular - gradually took over the market and    over thousands of years of human agriculture in East Africa.
began pushing njahe out of production. The colonial agricul-   Intensive "maize mining" and neglect of the nitrogen-fixing
tural extension service also carried out purification cam-   properties of legumes like njahe resulted in the progressive
paigns to eliminate multicropping of mixed beans and to en-   impoverishment of soils. Bean monocropping led in turn to
higher susceptibility of these crop stands to disease. Finally,
since bean cultivation constituted an important element in
I K      N          o tes                                the economic activity of women and their capacity to nourish
their families, the pressure to produce income and abandon
would be of interest to:                                  beans inevitably contributed to the increasing out-migration
of women to urban areas.
Name                                                        Colonial policies were in effect extended into the period of
Institution                                               Kenyan independence, by default if not by design. Continued
preoccupation with cash crop and export production, mo-
Address                                                   nopoly of these activities by men, and economic pressures
from taxes and the need to pay school fees all kept attention
away from women's roles in bean production and the conser-
vation of seed diversity. Not until the 1970s did the prejudice
against traditional bean species begin to relax, as Kenyan ag-
ricultural policy underwent gradual re-Africanization.
Examples across Africa
*m _    _               _ *                The situation described in Kenya is scarcely an isolated
_ =*    = i = *    - -                              phenomenon. Across Africa, similar stories could be evoked
-  stories of the gradual impoverishment of seed stocks
under the pressure of cash cropping and of the parallel
negligence of women's roles in agriculture and their key



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function as guardians of biodiversity. In fact, Africa is one of   edible plants. They have both brought new species of wild
the world's regions with the lowest quotient of original to   plants under cultivation in recent years and spurred their
imported seed stock - a characteristic typical elsewhere of   communities to carefully regulate collection rights in the
zones of settler implantation, like North America and   face of increasing commercialization.
Australia. Seed stocks and germ plasm constitute a kind of
*Women In the Dalwangan and Mammbong communities,
botanical repository of indigenous knowledge. Because of   Bukidnon province, Mindanao (the Philippines) have played
their responsibility for family subsistence, women have for
an active role in constituing a "memory bank" of indigenous
millenia been central to the breeding of food crop species,   germplasm with agricultural researchers, because they share
the preservation of seeds and the domestication and use of
the concern for diversity. "I cultivate different kinds [of sweet
wild edible plants. Concerns with susceptibility to disease    potatoes], as many as I can get cuttings of," one farmer
and insurance against crop failure under climatic stress and    commented, " because each has its use and none is proof to
unpredictability have led them to diversify these stocks and    all disasters."
cultivation patterns.
* In northern India, an elderly woman farmer puts the
In Burkina Faso and throughout the West African Sahel, for   matter succinctly as she selects seeds for storage: "It takes a
example, rural women carefully collect the fruit, leaves and    sharp eye, a sensitive hand and a lot of patience to tell the
roots of native plants like the baobab tree (Adansonia   difference between these seeds. But these are not the things
digitata), red sorrel leaves (Hibiscus saddarifa), kapok leaves   that are honored any more."
(Ceiba pentandra) and tigernut tubers (Cyperus esculentus   * In the United States, genetic modification of tomatoes by
L) for use in the diet of their families, supplementing the    agro industry has led to species that have a long "shelf life"
agricultural grains (millet, sorghum) that provide only one   -  i.e., ability to ripen in transit or in grocery stores after
part of the nutritional spectrum and may fail in any given    being harvested green -  and even a square form  that
year. More than 800 species of edible wild plants have been   facilitates packing in crates. These characteristics make
catalogued across the Sahel.                               tomato-farming a more profitable activity and one easier to
a In southern Sudan, women are directly responsible for the    carry out on a large scale, but have had for parallel
selection of all sorghum seeds saved for planting each year.   consequence poorer taste and loss of genetic diversity. A
They cull seeds and preserve a spread of varieties that will   minor market has sprung up in "heirloom tomatoes" -
ensure resistance to the variety of conditions that may arise   species preserved in many cases by women gardeners and
in any given growing season.                              now conserved and reproduced for the organic customer.
The role of women farmers worldwide                       Turning the tide
Equivalent stories can be recounted about gender and   Is there still time in countries such as Kenya ? Yes, but not to
agricultural biodiversity in other regions of the world as well.   waste. The diminishing diversity of seed stocks puts food
In agricultural societies around the globe, women have   security at risk, because of the greater vulnerability of a
tended to be the custodians of biodiversity.              narrow  band of species to climate change and other
environmental events. And it seems unlikely that the
Researchers from the Wageningen Agricultural University   situation can be turned around without paying much closer
of the Netherlands have found that women in the Kalasin   attention to the means by which traditional farmers have
region of northern Thailand play a critical role in managing    nurtured seed stocks and indigenous species, and the key
the interface between wild and domesticated species of   role that women have played in this enterprise.



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The njahe bean itself has nonetheless recouped a part of
the terrain lost over the last century. With the abandonment
of export ambitions for white beans, African tastes for red
and black varieties have begun to reassert themselves. But
dried beans - and the female labor that traditionally en-
sured their volume and diversity - remain subsidiary in the
Kenyan economy.
Increased sensitivity to issues of biodiversity - triggered
by the rain forest and the example of disappearing species
with medical significance - has sown new seeds of hope in
this realm, however, both for Africa and for other developing
regions. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture
(CIAT) in Cali, Colombia is coordinating a multiyear
participatory  research  program   on  gender  roles  in
agriculture and participatory plant breeding (Participatory
Research and Gender Analysis: "PRGA' , on the web at http:/
/www.prgaprogram.org). One branch office has been
established in Uganda for the African Highlands Initiative, an
explotation of participatory gender research in East Africa.
At the same time, the West African Rice Development
Association (WARDA), headquartered in Bouake, Ivory Coast,
has given increasing attention to the preservation of
biodiversity among rice farmers of the Sahel and has
sponsored research into related practices in southwestern
Mali. (See http://www.cgiar.org/warda/)
This article was written by co-authored by Peter Easton and Margaret Ronald, Florida State University. The research was
caried out under thejoint aegis of the Club du Sahel/OECD, the Interstate Committee for Combating Drought in the Sahel/
Comite Inter-etat Contre la Secheresse (CILSS) and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa.