Project News

Dr. Morimoto of Bioversity International had a presentation at the International Conference on Sustainable Seed System in Ethiopia held on 1 & 2 June, 2011 at EIAR. His presentation was on the research on commercializing African Leafy Vegetables (ALV). There are a number of wild and semi-cultivated local vegetables, which are not marketed but well utilized by locals. Highly adopted to the local agro-ecology, so easy and less costly to grow, some of the ALVs are more nutritious than modern vegetables thus, through commercialization, they can contribute not only to nutrition but also to better income of farmers. Bioversity International has been working with focuses on diversity, local resource and participatory research, which are similar to the FRG approach. Based on the practical experiences, Dr. Morimoto's presentation was well received by the participants. The conference was organized by Future Agriculture and EIAR, sponsored by the Netherland Government as a part of the research project "Political Economy of Cereal Seed Systems in Africa",in which Dr. Dawit, the Project Manager of FRG II Project, is one of the research members. The brief overview of the conference can be seen here. Dr. Morimoto also presented the same theme at the FRG seminar on June 10th, 2011. The FRG seminar is a series of small seminars on themes related to participatory research.