Promotion of African Leafy Vegetables

We close the year with the release of issue 137. We also wish to remind of the SPECIAL Issue on African leafy vegetables we carried way back in 2007. Now 17 years later, the editorial I wrote at that time is still relevant today. Well, what has changed since then? At that time we were seriously promoting production among smallholder women farmers in western Kenya. We were also promoting the vegetables amongst people living with HIV/AIDS. Then in 2007 we got a big boost when one of the reasons for my 2017 Africa Food Prize was promotion of these vegetables to the point where they went National. When COVID arrived in 2020, we were ready and the sales of these vegetables in super markets picked up. These vegetables require an acquired taste. They really do not taste that great. But because they are believed to be medicinal, people will eat them anyway. And look, my grandchildren eat these because they started consuming them early. As we see increased sales of these vegetables in Kenya and even in elite supermarkets, we can attribute that to increased appreciation of these vegetables by Kenyan consumers. What do we need now? We need subgovernment to prioritize the growing of these vegetables, research on nutritional and medicinal components, and to promote value addition. I see efforts being made to include these vegetables in school meals, which is a very good idea. What we are doing through our NGO, Rural Outreach Africa is to work with 4K clubs in primary schools to not only consume these vegetables but also grow these as well and to learn more about nutrition. We are always looking for partners to work with us to ensure we involve young learners trying to find solutions to better nutrition and in Kenya, working with 4K clubs already an accepted policy within Kenya's educational system is the way to go. Let us go! We share with you 14 well reviewed articles. In 2023 we published a total number of 147 peer reviewed articles and in 2024 169.