TAV2020

Call for Papers

POWER ON YOUR PLATE: All-Africa Summit on Diversifying Food Systems with African Traditional Vegetables to Increase Health, Nutrition and Wealth invites researchers, civil society workers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in research organizations, universities, governments, civil society groups, and private industry to explore the latest initiatives to integrate these valuable plants into food systems.

Plenary lectures, invited papers, oral and poster presentations, and panel discussions will explore innovative research, activities, and policies focused on expanding the role of traditional vegetables in Africa’s food systems, unlocking their potential for income generation, ensuring the nutrition they offer reaches resource-poor populations, and investigating novel non-food uses for these crops.  

Submissions are sought in the following categories:

DIVERSITY AND BREEDING 

• Collection, conservation, and characterization of traditional vegetable germplasm
• Mobilizing the diversity of traditional vegetables 
• Digital technology for mapping spatial diversity of indigenous vegetables 
• Crop improvement 
• Gene sequencing 

SEED SYSTEMS, ACCESS, AND QUALITY

• Increasing access to quality seed of traditional vegetables
• Private and public seed sector collaborations
• Initiatives for local seed saving and distribution
• New developments in national and regional seed policies
• Germplasm exchange: opportunities and challenges for stakeholders 

FOOD ENVIRONMENTS

• Role of traditional vegetables in local, regional and national food systems
• Key programs and policies to foster integration of traditional vegetables in food systems
• Networks to champion change
• Role of traditional vegetables in resilience and food security
• Approaches and impacts to influence behavior change towards increased consumption of traditional vegetables

VALUE CHAINS AND SCALING

• Production systems: opportunities and challenges
• Postharvest handling (packaging, storage, transport) 
• Integrating traditional vegetables into existing market systems
• Developing new markets for traditional vegetables
• Value addition: preserving the harvest and creating new products  
• Increasing utilization of traditional vegetables
• Business opportunities for commercialization along the value chain (breeding, seed multiplication, access to domestic and foreign markets)

NUTRITION

• Nutrients and anti-nutrients in traditional vegetables
• Dietary impact of traditional vegetables: what we know
• Cultural aspects of traditional vegetable consumption
• Consumer preferences: What makes traditional vegetables desirable / not desirable?
• Increasing and disseminating knowledge of traditional vegetable health benefits

BEYOND FOOD

• Traditional plant-based natural products
• African botanicals for health and nutrition
• Non-traditional uses of indigenous plants for the global market
• Issues facing sustainable collecting and production practices of medicinal and aromatic plants
• Herbs and spices
• African botanicals for cosmetics, perfumes, natural coloring agents
• Natural products as animal and insect repellents