Ethnobotanical knowledge and sustainable food system development in Africa.

This project will examine how ethnobotanical knowledge of Neglected and underutilised crop species (NUCS) can enhance sustainable food system development in Africa. Ethnobotanical knowledge is a situated, local knowledges of food and agriculture, which can be opposed to larger scale scientific and commercial knowledges (Quave and Pieroni, 2015). NUCS are indigenous and traditional crops - tubers, grains, vegetables and fruits which, despite being of high local importance, have either been given insufficient attention or entirely ignored by agricultural research and policy-makers compared with major crops with commercial importance (Padulosi et al., 2013).
Research Questions
The overarching research question that will underpin this study is:
How can ethnobotanical knowledge of NUCS contribute to sustainable food system development? And how can locally available and climate-resilient neglected indigenous and traditional crop varieties and wild edible species support local food system transformation?
To help answer the overarching question, the following specific questions will be explored.
1) Who (e.g. men, women or older people) has ethnobotanical knowledges of NUCS? What does having this knowledge mean? How do such knowledges become marginalised and how can their value be re-expressed?
2) What is the diversity of the neglected wild, indigenous and traditional crop species in Ghana?
3) What are the priority species and their role in food security and economic prosperity for the poor smallholder farmers in Ghana?
4) What is the perceptions of availability, conservation status, uses, cultivation and management practices of these priority species?
Research Philosophy and Approach
The study will be underpinned by Pragmatism. Pragmatics recognise that there are many different ways of undertaking research, that no single point of view can ever give the entire picture and that there may be multiple realities (Saunders et al., 2012). And to understand the manifestation of these multiple realities, it advocates for an integration of multiple research methods - quantitative and qualitative research approaches - mixed methods approach in research (Creswell 2013).
Data collection - Different methods have been used in ethnobotanical studies to collect data on individual ethnobotanical knowledge. The project will employ a mixed method approach to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from farmers and agricultural scientists.
Data analysis - Ethnobotanical studies, historically, have predominantly relied on qualitative methods of data analysis (Garcia et al., 2007). To merit an enhanced scientific quality, scholars suggested that ethnobotanical studies should become more quantitative (Phillips, 1996). Both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data analysis will be employed. Qualitative approach to ethnobotanical studies is needed for a careful qualitative description of indigenous knowledge. For the quantitative approach, the study will follow the informant consensus approach. This method calculates the relative importance of each specie directly from the degree of consensus in informants independent responds.
Significance of the Project
This project will make an important contribution to knowledge because, already, there is very limited research on NUCS and local ethnobotanical knowledge around them and how they can be used for sustainable food transformation. In terms of practical development, this research will be very useful to policy-makers and other stakeholders in Ghana in making policies, and targeting interventions around NUCS.