00:00 Wide,
marketplace
Women
buying Bambara Groundnuts
Close
up – pile of groundnuts
Wide
– Exterior & sign, University of Nottingham
Wide,
researcher (Simon Mwale) sorting groundnuts
c.u.
Simon Mwale
Wide
– groundnuts sorted into containers
Guide Voice: Market day at a Ghanaian village
in West Africa. These women are buying Bambara Groundnut, a legume
related to cowpea and found locally throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
To look at it you wouldn’t think this small groundnut was
particularly special – but scientists at the UK’s
University of Nottingham believe Bambara Groundnut may well be the
future of vegetable protein in countries with particularly dry
climates.
00:25 SOT: Dr. Sayed Azam-Ali, Reader in Tropical
Agronomy, University of Nottingham –
“What’s significant, and what’s unusual about
it, of course, its main feature, is that it's drought tolerant and
is grown in areas which are too dry for other legumes and
that’s very important because most people's food, certainly
in developing countries, comes from vegetable protein, so you need
a source of vegetable protein in a dry climate. Bambara Groundnut
provides that”.
00:42 Wide
– Climate Control Greenhouses
Researcher
(Simon Mwale) entering greenhouse
Simon
Mwale adjusting controls
c.u.
hand on keypad
Wide
– Researcher (Rakhi Basu) sorting groundnuts in
greenhouse
c.u.
hands transferring groundnuts to container
Wide
– Rakhi Basu & Dr. Mayes in the laboratory
c.u.
preparing samples
c.u.
Rakhi Basu
c.u.
pipette & sample tube
Guide Voice: Through funding from the European
Union, the researchers at the University of Nottingham, using these
special climate-controlled greenhouses at the Tropical Crops
Research Unit, have been able to carry out very specific and
targeted climatic research on Bambara Groundnut. Computer modelling
based on their research and field experiments predicts that the
crop could be suitable for a number of locations outside the
African continent.
The crop is commonly still cultivated from local landraces
rather than varieties bred specifically for particular conditions
and it is this aim to produce crossbred varieties, in order to
increase yield and capitalise on the plants nutritional and drought
resistant properties that has been the focus of the research for
the University of Nottingham and its partners in Africa and
Europe.
01:24 SOT: Dr Sean Mayes, Lecturer in Crop Genetics,
University of Nottingham - “What we really
needed was to be able to control crossing and that’s
obviously been achieved here at Nottingham, and once you
have a controlled cross you can start serious breeding programmes.
That will allow us to produce defined material and that defined
material will behave in ways which actually suit the environment in
which it’s designed to be placed”.
01:46 Sign
– Crops Research Institute, Ghana
Wide
– CRI Offices, Ghana
Wide
– field of Bambara Groundnut
c.u.
Bambara Groundnut plant
Wide
– Field Workers weeding Bambara Groundnut crop
c.u.
weeding
Wide
– weeding and planting
c.u.
hoeing
Market
Traders and groundnuts
Wide
– Bambara Groundnut stall in market
Wide
– Groundnuts being piled into tin.
c.u.
Groundnuts being piled into tin
Wide
– Bambara Groundnuts on display, market
Guide Voice: Working with institutions in
Africa, Europe and Asia, and new partners such as the Crop Research
Institute in Ghana, the scientists at Nottingham are now
co-ordinating what is one of the few international projects on an
under-utilised crop. A unique project that combines
established methods of agronomic research with novel molecular
techniques and local experience from the growers themselves.
Traditionally, farmers in Africa have been encouraged to replace
indigenous food plants for exotic crops, such as maize and soya.
These crops require considerable water which, as climate changes,
is set to become more and more of an issue. Their aim now is to
show that Bambara Groundnut has the potential to produce a useful
contribution to sustainability in Africa and other countries.
02:29 SOT: Dr. Azam-Ali –
“If we can increase the yields we’ve got a root
here to food security and sustainability because it can grow in
hostile environments and produce yield. And that’s a
combination you very rarely get in the major crops. And
here’s a crop that could in the future at least through
research and effort and extension, we could actually get this crop
to grow far more widely outside its centre of cultivation in
potentially vast new areas of the semi arid tropics where it's
never been grown before”.
02:55 c.u.
Flower on Bambara Groundnut plant
Wide,
Dr Azam-Ali inspecting plants in greenhouse
c.u.
Dr Azam-Ali’s handling plant leaves
Wide
– Field workers at lunch
c.u.
worker eating
Wide
– Field workers at lunch
Wide
– Researcher (Kondjashili Mhanda) removing leaves in
laboratory
c.u.
removal of plant leaves
c.u.
leaves
Wide
– leaves being scanned and measured
c.u.
leaves coming through machine
Guide Voice: The key to the future of this crop
would seem to be acceptability. It is traditionally seen as a
“woman’s crop”, something for the vegetable patch
and not for serious farmers, but it’s high in protein and has
come out well in taste tests. These field workers are eating
Tubani, a local dish created from Bambara groundnut , and in other
parts of Africa it has been canned or incorporated into breakfast
foods. With partners in Europe and India as well as Africa, the
research team obviously see a future for Bambara Groundnut, but
their work is also about awakening food producers to the wider
potential of unutilised crops
03:31 SOT: Dr. Azam-Ali –
“We want to reach the breeding programme stage where we
can actually release varieties of this crop, this may not be just
us, it clearly wants to involve some of the international centres
and national programmes, but what we then want to see at the end of
that cycle, is what we’ve tried to do in one crop you could
do in many. There are many hundreds of Bambara Groundnuts if you
like, of unutilised crops in the world, and the idea that
they’re all useless and that we really shouldn’t bother
wasting our time trying to improve them, is really out of date now.
Those crops have survived despite agricultural science and what we
need to do is ask the people who’ve protected those crops for
many generations, why they keep growing them? What is good about
them? And what could we improve, you know; overcome the
constraints.”
04:12 Wide
– field workers planting Bambara Groundnut
c.u.
seeds going into the ground
Wide
– market stall and Bambara Groundnuts
Guide Voice: Africa, which used to account for
10% of the World’s agriculture now only accounts for
4%.African Scientists have rarely looked to their native crops to
provide solutions to their food needs and possibilities for export
markets. Perhaps this humble groundnut could be the start of an
African agricultural revolution.
04:32 End
of cut
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