Fitting underutilised crops within research-poor environments: Lessons and approaches

Abstract

Underutilised crops, the cropping systems in which they are cultivated and the people who manage, protect and conserve them represent important elements of agricultural biodiversity. Each of these components and our knowledge of them is increasingly marginalised by the structures and rewards of modern agricultural research. The ‘silofication’ of research into rigid disciplines, the incentives for fundamental research on major crops and the preference for short-term research on simple cropping systems all mitigate against progress on agricultural biodiversity, in general, and underutilised crops, in particular. This paper considers the lessons that can be learned from current research projects on one underutilised crop – bambara groundnut – and argues that new ‘trans-disciplinary’ approaches are necessary for future progress.