Endangered, Neglected, Indigenous Resilient Crops: A Potential against Climate Change Impact for Sustainable Crop Productivity and Food Security

Abstract

Globally, agriculture is critical for food security and source of livelihood for approximately 500 million households. The small hold farmers provide food for about 70% of the world population today. The impact that climate change is predicted to have on farming is, thus, a major threat to world food security. It is against this background that this work takes a retrospective swipe to highlight the imperative need to exploit the adaptive resilient qualities offered by the rich bio-diverse indigenous crops of the Nigerian cum African agricultural landscape towards meeting the challenges posed by climate change, and the consequent loss of biodiversity and declining crop productivity, amidst the global food crisis. It is reported that most endandered, neglected, indigenous/ "native," African crops such as Acha (Digitaria exilis), Benniseed (Sesanum indicum, L.), Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.), indigenous Millet (Pennisetum typhoideum), Guinea corn (Sorghum bicolor) and the likes, have low water demands; as such tolerate drought stress. They grow productively on soils inherently low in fertility and their nutrients demand could be met locally through low cost organic sources. These crops are well able to adapt and cope with stress factors in the region; with increased temperature and reduced rainfall, and thus, offer a potential in the fight against climate change. The combined threat of disease, climate change and loss of biodiversity means that food shortages are inevitable and this situation could escalate as human population increases globally. The fear is that many useful indigenous/wild species could disappear-leaving rural communities less resilient and vulnerable to changing weather patterns. The adaptation of agriculture to climate change would depend on the conservation and introduction of crop wild relatives from the rich "native"/indigenous bio-diverse stocks. This could hold the key for developing climate-proof crops.