To Meet Future Food Demands We Need to Change from Annual Grain Legumes to Multipurpose Semi-Perennial Legumes

Pigeonpea [(Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.)] production system, farmers’ preferred traits and implications for variety development and introduction in Benin

“…Popularization of early or extra-early-maturing cultivars may make the cultivation of pigeonpea more attractive to women. Contrary to our observation, that is, women were more involved in pigeonpea commercialization, in some regions in Tanzania (e.g., Babati), men played the major role in pigeonpea grains commercialization probably because in this region, pigeonpea was introduced as cash crop [8]. This suggests that the role played by male and female in pigeonpea value chain is context specific and depends on the status, subsistence or commercial, of the crop.…”

“…This observation was consistent with findings of similar studies [4,10]. In fact, as a legume, pigeonpea fixes atmospheric nitrogen in its various parts and the leaves drop forming litter and root residues enhance soil fertility [8,34].…”

“…The mature seeds contain 18.8% protein, 53% starch, 2.3% fat, 6.6% crude fiber and 250.3 mg 100 g −1 minerals [7]. As a perennial shrub, pigeonpea has many advantages over annual legumes in that several harvests are possible and the capacity to contribute to enhance soil fertility is much higher [8]. Pigeonpea has high tolerance to drought stresses, high biomass productivity, which is mainly used as fodder, and provides the most nutrient and moisture contributions to the soil [9,10].…”

The Bean – Naturally Bridging Agriculture and Human Wellbeing

“…Beans are superior to cereals in their macro-and micronutrient content as demonstrated in Table 1, in agreement with [9] although trials with other pulses under farmers' conditions have demonstrated that genetic potential are not always expressed under more marginal conditions. Furthermore, the legumes holds a potential for entering the diet in a diversity of ways, ranging from the dry mature seeds, to green seeds and pods as well as leaves used as vegetables, see also [10]. An efficient bridge to human wellbeing can thus be established by enhancing the access to and intake of the beans with their high nutrient density.…”

“…This approach would also recognize that a large proportion of the bean production occurs under conditions of significant drought stress [32], where agricultural inputs may not be an economically viable option. To overcome these particular stress conditions in combination with a vulnerable crop establishment phase, [10]) suggested investing in semi-perennial leguminous crops that has capacity to cope with short term weather variations. However, given the dominant role that beans have in nutrition in Africa and Latin America, robustness to environmental stress must be sought (Table 3) and combined with proper seed availability programmes [33].…”