Be mindful of our native food crops
Michael J Ssali
What you need to know:
- These include cabbages, exotic tomatoes, carrots, wheat flour, maize flour, rice, cassava, and matooke among a few others. Also commonly available in our food markets are eggs, exotic chicken, beef, milk, fish, and goat meat.
When you visit a food market anywhere in Uganda there are specific vegetables, grains, tubers and banana cultivars and a few other food crops that you are bound to find displayed.
These include cabbages, exotic tomatoes, carrots, wheat flour, maize flour, rice, cassava, and matooke among a few others. Also commonly available in our food markets are eggs, exotic chicken, beef, milk, fish, and goat meat.
Yet Uganda is naturally endowed with a rich diversity of food items that one hardly finds in the markets. I have been reading a little book published by Slow Food Uganda, titled: “Uganda --- From Earth to Table” and in which the President of Slow Food Uganda, Edward Mukiibi, has written: “Uganda is endowed with a range of climates and environments that encourage the flourishing of diverse forms of both flora, macro and micro, torrential and aquatic. The same conditions are ideal for the farming of a wide range of indigenous African food species that have supported local communities through tough times.”
Mukiibi goes on to say that like in other African countries, there are specific crops for each season, an edible insect for every time of the year and animals adapted to every specific type of vegetation, altitude and climate.
He believes that all these food products are closely linked to the culture, traditions, and beliefs of the Ugandan people and that the country’s 40-plus ethnic groups are all united by one important asset which is food diversity.
As any visit to our food markets will reveal, there are hundreds of our food crops that are neglected and at risk of extinction.
Most of our long cherished food crops, fish species, and edible insects are considered less important by research organisations and government agencies which only promote the production of food crop and livestock species from foreign countries such as wheat, rice, dairy cows, among several others.
Writing in the same hand book, Piero Sardo, President of the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, says, “For us foreigners travelling in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, it has never been easy to get an idea of African cuisine.”
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
