In rural Africa, wild foods provide diversity, vitamins and minerals in the diet. They are also important at times of food shortage. This paper discusses issues concerning wild food use in semiarid West Africa, and presents the results of a study of the use of wild plant foods in northeast Nigeria. Interviews with farmers and herders identified a total of 67 wild foods, coming from 53 species of plant. Knowledge of wild foods varied according to ethnic group and gender. Some wild foods caused side effects if eaten in excess. Land-use change due to agricultural expansion seems to be increasing the areas where wild foods are most commonly found. Wild foods are important as a supplement to daily diet, and at times of food scarcity. In addition, they provide an opportunity to generate income when they are collected and traded. The paper concludes that wild foods are an important coping strategy for rural communities. Further research is needed to determine whether local institutions and community-based natural resource management regimes are sufficient to conserve this resource.

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Agricultural technologies and innovations play a great role in increasing productivity, alleviating and reducing poverty and contributing to economic development and this is made possible through adoption of improved technologies and innovations. This study centered on analysis of adoption of improved groundnut varieties in the Tropical Legume (TL III) States of Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 1476 groundnut farmers in the project States and from whom primary data were collected using electronic data capturing instrument containing the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Average Treatment Effect (ATE) framework. The results showed that the breeding and promotion of improved groundnut varieties in Nigeria under the Tropical Legume Project and with the synergy of USAID groundnut up-scaling Project in Nigeria resulted in very high level of awareness of improved varieties, more than average level of access to the improved variety seeds, moderate level of utilization of the improved varieties among the groundnut farmers and the adoption rate of improved varieties increased from 8% at based line to 57% at the end of the project. The study recommends extension of the project to facilitate further access to these varieties and for state governments to take ownership of the projects in terms of financial commitments to promotional efforts for mass adoption by farmers.