The TAVI (Taiwan Africa Vegetable Initiative) project brought together partners from Benin, Eswatini, Madagascar and Tanzania, and the World Vegetable Center, to rescue, conserve and use African vegetable diversity to contribute to overcoming malnutrition by increasing the production and consumption of nutritious vegetables.

The partner in Benin is the Genetics, Biotechnology and Seed Science Unit (GBioS) of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi), with activities anchored in the second project objective, to rescue genetic resources of traditional African vegetables by collecting at least 4,800 landraces and crop wild relatives of 25 species in the four project countries, which are ‘hotspots’ of vegetable biodiversity in Africa. However, by the end of 2023, a total of 15,883 accessions had been collected – more than triple the original target!

In Benin, the GBioS team was expected to collect 1,200 accessions of traditional African vegetable species and their wild relatives, regenerate and share the collected accessions with World Vegetable Center genebank in Arusha, train MSc students on traditional vegetables documentation and strengthen the capacity of GBioS genebank staff on genebank operations. GBioS organized four collecting missions between 2022 and 2023, and that covered 59 of Benin’s districts/communes out of a total of 77 in the country. During these, a total of 9,477 accessions of 50 different species were collected – almost eight times the target!

Cucurbita maxima accession collection in Adido, Savè, Sudano-Guinean region (left), jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius) leaf sampling for sequencing in Dan, Djidja, Sudano-Guinean region, (center), and a masters student characterizing okra (Abelmoschus spp.) germplasm on an experiment plot at Sèdjè-Dénou, Zè, Guineo-Congolian region (right).

Of the collected accessions, 1,430 have already been regenerated, and 2,963 accessions have so far been shared with the World Vegetable Center genebank in Arusha. In addition, phenotypic data have been generated for 1,758 accessions while sequencing information are being generated for 1,500. The phenotypic information was generated thanks to the active participation of 11 students recruited by GbioS to conduct their MSc research as part of the TAVI project. The GBioS genebank also benefitted from TAVI project support to improve its infrastructures, while its staff gained much from TAVI training courses organized throughout the course of the project. Together, these achievements represent a crucial step in the rescue, sustainable conservation, utilization and use of vegetable genetic resources in Benin, and beyond.

Dèdéou Tchokponhoué (TAVI project manager, Benin) and Prof Enoch G. Achigan-Dako (TAVI project coordinator, Benin).

The TAVI project is funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan. It is implemented by the World Vegetable Center, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Education and Training, Eswatini; the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin; the National Plant Genetic Resources Centre, Tanzania; and the National Center for Applied Research on Rural Development (FOFIFA) and University of Antananarivo, Madagascar.