My Beauty Best Teacher

In light of the continued spike in food prices we take a look at Ifeyinwa Fransesca Smith's 1995 paper on the need for an Indigenous West African Food Culture. She made a strong case for educating the public on the benefits of under-recognized foods then,a point which remains relevant today:

There is a dire need for well planned and executed popularization campaigns of foods produced both within countries and the subregion. The many food technology institutes and food industries have roles to play in ensuring easy availability of our local foods in nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable forms. Their roles must not end with the production of such foods, there is need for continuous research aimed at evolving better, versatile and more acceptable products. These new products should in turn be subjected to intense recipe development, be aggressively popularized through their use in the preparation of locally acceptable and nutritionally adequate meals. Finally, there is a need for continued research into newer and better ways of utilizing the partly processed foods and popularizing new recipes evolved.

Commenting on the viewpoints of Anti-Globalization agitators the writer and presenter of the documentary 'The Devils Footpath' Akinyi June Arunga stated that,"...Like many other globalization protesters I've encountered, they seemed to believe that Mexicans and other poor people don't want the same conveniences of life that they themselves enjoy: running water, permanent homes, affordable clothes and food, leisure time, cars. They preferred things to stay "exotic"—underdeveloped and poor.The "indigenous" customs enjoyed by such tourists are not so charming when they make up one's day-to-day existence. The protesters curse the use of DDT, the only effective control of malaria, because it harms birds. But they never have to wonder if their children will survive the current malaria epidemic. They argue against the use of pesticides and pest- and drought-resistant crops, but they never have to wonder how they will survive if a pest invasion or drought destroys all their grown food.They argue against new technologies, such as the genetic modification of crops, that might increase productivity and help us move from subsistence farming to cash crops, but they never have to worry that there might not be food on the table..."

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong reports on Courage Quashigah's campaign for a return to traditional foods:
He argues for,

Balanced nutrition by consuming healthy traditional Ghanaian food, as a bulwark against “preventing ill health,” is as vital as curative measures in the face of severe inadequate health infrastructure. Such observation comes in the face of similar admonitions in Japan, a country admired by Ghanaians for their ability to mix their traditional values with the dominant Western neo-liberal ones in their development process...The lessons here are that Ghanaian indigenous foods, with its heavy emphasis on green vegetables, like the famed healthy Arab/Mediterranean foods, are among some of the healthiest in the world.

In SciDev:

"When the new African Agricultural Revolution is eventually implemented, it is likely to be built on Africa's own indigenous technology and knowledge requirements and the nutrition and food security needs of its people," says an UNCTAD report...It recommends strengthening the 'innovation systems' — a wide range of interconnecting issues, from providing financial incentives and ensuring technology transfer to promoting education — for agriculture in each country in Africa. "This means enhancing links between knowledge research institutes to make sure any innovation they come up with is diffused to the farmer,"

The NYTimes reports on Africa's dwindling Ankole Cattle:

In recent decades, global trade, sophisticated marketing, artificial insemination and the demands of agricultural economics have transformed the Holstein into the world’s predominant dairy breed. Indigenous animals like East Africa’s sinewy Ankole, the product of centuries of selection for traits adapted to harsh conditions, are struggling to compete with foreign imports bred for maximal production. This worries some scientists. The world’s food supply is increasingly dependent on a small and narrowing list of highly engineered breeds: the Holstein, the Large White pig and the Rhode Island Red and Leghorn chickens. There’s a risk that future diseases could ravage these homogeneous animal populations. Poor countries, which possess much of the world’s vanishing biodiversity, may also be discarding breeds that possess undiscovered genetic advantages. But farmers like Mugira(from Uganda) say they can’t afford to wait for science. And so, on the African savanna, a competition for survival is underway.

Directed by Yorgos Avgeropoulos, "DELTA - Oil's Dirty Business" "...portrays the image of "development", the way giant multinational petroleum companies would define it. Petroleum leaks in the River destroy flora and fauna, poison the food chain and consequently wipe out the 27 million indigenous people of the area - the Ijaws, the Ogoni and the Itsekiris. The inhabitants dare to ask the self-evident, they demand an end to it. As a response they are massively and brutally attacked by special forces of the army and the police, which are armed by the oil companies. The camera meets at the river militia of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta-MEND- and presents to the world for the first time shattering images of their speed boat patrols and of their heavy weaponry..."

In Scidev:

Most endangered livestock breeds are in developing countries, where they are herded by pastoralists or tended by farmers who grow both crops and livestock on small plots of land. Faced with a daily struggle to survive, many of these farmers are unlikely to prioritise conservation of their rare breeds — at least not without significant support...Documenting and conserving this diversity — of cattle, goats, sheep, swine and poultry — is just as essential as the maintenance of crop diversity for ensuring future food supplies in the face of health and environmental threats.