Michael Major

A Traveller's Eye, A Thinker's Heart

Category: Travels for Crop Trust

  • THE BAMBARA GROUNDNUTS OF UNYAMIKUMBI

    If you look at a dried Bambara groundnut in its shell you’d be forgiven if you thought it was a deformed peanut. They share a name. Peanuts are called ‘groundnuts’ in many places in the world. And they are both legumes. And both need to have hard shells removed prior to eating. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. They’re distant botanical cousins but probably not close enough to be invited to family reunions. Bambara groundnuts (BGN) are sown in arid and semi-arid locations like the village of Unyamikumbi, in…

    Read the full story …

    THE BAMBARA GROUNDNUTS OF UNYAMIKUMBI

  • THE SINGIDA MORNING MARKET

    Sweetpotato leaves wilt quickly. They’re harvested in the early morning and usually consumed by nighttime. We wanted to see them nice and fresh so we ventured to the Singida market as the sun rose. We found leafy green vendors, Domina, Rahel and Mwasiti, setting up shop. They pulled out African nightshade, amaranth, mustard greens and sweetpotato leaves. Business was pretty slow at that hour of the day so the three women and I had fun as I got them to pose for photos with their leafy greens. I didn’t have to…

    Read the full story …

    THE SINGIDA MORNING MARKET

  • NJUGU

    Esther Yoham Majija wanted to make her bakery, the Fortlene Bakery, a step apart from other bakeries in her town of Babati, Tanzania. She wanted to use traditional African vegetables in her baked products. The mother of three visited a booth of the World Vegetable Center at a trade fair and learned of different ingredients and recipes she could use to improve the nutrition of her products. We had heard that one of those ingredients she is using in the Bambara groundnut (njugu in Swahili) so we paid her a visit…

    Read the full story …

    NJUGU

  • RECLAIMING FONIO

    It’s one of the oldest cultivated crops in Africa but you’d be forgiven if you’d never heard of fonio. I had heard of fonio’s many qualities but had never seen nor eaten it. That’s changed now. I travelled to Benin with my colleague Scott Christiansen to learn more. Stakeholders in Benin led by the Crop Trust’s BOLDER project identified fonio as one of several priority opportunity crops. Those are crops which offer great potential in terms of food security but have been neglected by researchers and policymakers and underutilized. Fonio is…

    Read the full story …

    RECLAIMING FONIO

  • CRINCRIN

    I never thought I’d enjoy eating green mucilaginous slime. But I did. Jute mallow is a favorite with the Beninese who call the crop crincrin. It’s an annual leafy crop grown in many places around the world. Its leaves are rich in pro-vitamin A, iron, calcium, and vitamins B and C. Those are important in a country where the staple foods are energy-dense but micronutrient-poor. It grows pretty much everywhere in Benin. In small home gardens or market gardens. It’s not fussy about inputs but insects like it as well. Farmers…

    Read the full story …

    CRINCRIN

  • AGOUN FOR LUNCH

    The city Dassa-Zoumé is about half way between Cotonou and Natitingou in Benin and pops up just about when your stomach starts to grumble during the day-long trip. Our colleagues, Malika and Sam, knew just the place for lunch and we stopped in at a roadside kitchen for a feed. Malika said something about yams and groundnuts and Scott and I said OK, but not really knowing what we were going to eat. A short time later we saw three women trying to massacre a ball of dough. Lunch was presented…

    Read the full story …

    AGOUN FOR LUNCH

  • BY THE RIVER OF DEATH

    The mouth of the Ouémé River in Benin was historically quite a treacherous place with dangerous currents which took many lives. Yet the settlers and traders built a fishing village at the mouth and that village has now grown to be Benin’s largest city. French colonists liked the location and stablised the currents and built a port to export Benin’s riches, including palm oil and slaves. The locals called the area Kútɔ̀nú in their Fon language, which means by the river of death. The French put their lingual twist on the…

    Read the full story …

    BY THE RIVER OF DEATH

  • THE ‘YOU NEVER KNOW’ RICE

    A rice variety developed in China in 2008, stored in international genebanks, has emerged as a top-performing crop in Pakistan. After years of preservation and testing, this resilient strain—now called NARC-RICE-1—demonstrates the vital role of seed conservation in ensuring future food security.

    Read the full story …

    THE ‘YOU NEVER KNOW’ RICE

  • IS ARCTIC SNOW REALLY BLUE?

    For years, I have been seeing photographs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. And in nearly every photograph, the snow is blue. The Svalbard Archipelago is halfway between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole, so I often wondered if perhaps up there the snow truly is blue. I finally got an opportunity to travel to Svalbard last month. And I can ensure you … the Arctic snow is perfectly white. It’s just that our not-so-smartphones think it’s blue. I bought my first camera – an Olympus OM-1 – in 1978…

    Read the full story …

    IS ARCTIC SNOW REALLY BLUE?
Travelers’ Map is loading…
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.