Across the diverse landscapes of Africa, a quiet nutritional lifeline is slipping away. For generations, wild food plants—from the nutrient-dense baobab to the resilient marula—have served as essential buffers against hunger and pillars of local livelihoods. Yet these species are disappearing faster than they can be saved, leaving millions of people vulnerable to food insecurity.
According to the Third Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), approximately 70 percent of surveyed wild food plant diversity in Africa is currently threatened. The decline is driven by a combination of habitat loss, land-use changes, climate stress and a chronic lack of investment in local food systems.
To combat this loss, scientists and conservationists are turning to genebanks as a primary strategy for protecting Africa’s threatened wild food plants. These facilities act as biological insurance policies, preserving the genetic blueprints of “orphan crops”—species like amaranthus, sorghum, millets, shea and African bush mango that are vital to local diets but often overlooked by global agricultural markets.
The effort is led in part by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and the African Orphan Crops Consortium. By safeguarding these underutilized species, the organizations aim to reduce the continent’s reliance on a narrow set of global staples and improve micronutrient intake for rural households.
The mechanics of biological preservation
Preserving genetic diversity is not as simple as storing seeds in a jar. It requires a rigorous, multi-stage scientific process designed to keep plant material viable for decades, or even centuries. At the CIFOR-ICRAF tree genebank, the process begins in the field, where seeds are collected only once they have reached full maturity to ensure their genetic integrity.
Once collected, the seeds undergo a precise cleaning and drying phase to remove moisture, which is the primary enemy of long-term storage. These seeds are then sealed in airtight containers and placed in deep-freeze conditions. This extreme cold slows the biological aging process, allowing the seeds to remain dormant until they are needed for breeding or restoration.
However, these facilities are not static vaults. Scientists perform regular viability tests to ensure the seeds can still germinate. When the viability of a sample begins to drop, the seeds are “grown out” in greenhouses or fields to produce a fresh, healthy generation of seeds for storage.
“Protecting genetic diversity through genebanks is essential for the future of food,” says Alice Muchugi, theme leader for Tree Diversity and Productivity at CIFOR-ICRAF. “As wild food plants disappear from landscapes, genebanks grow vital guardians of this diversity.”
A fragile system under threat
Despite their importance, Africa’s seed security is precarious. The FAO report reveals that while We find 56 genebanks across the continent conserving roughly 220,000 seed samples from nearly 4,000 plant species, only about 10 percent of these collections are safely duplicated in a second location.
This lack of redundancy creates a dangerous single point of failure. Power outages, floods, armed conflict and systemic underfunding could permanently erase unique genetic lineages. Noelle Anglin, secretary of the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources at the FAO, warns that without backup storage, these unique crops could be lost forever.
To mitigate this risk, CIFOR-ICRAF employs a strategy known as safety duplication. They store copies of their collections in world-renowned external facilities, including the Millennium Seed Bank in the United Kingdom, the Kunming Institute of Botany Genebank in China and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
The challenge of recalcitrant seeds
Not every plant can be frozen. Some species produce what are known as “recalcitrant seeds”—seeds that die if they are dried or frozen. For fruit trees like mango and citrus, the formation of ice crystals inside the seed tissue destroys its viability.
To protect these species, scientists use field genebanks. These are living collections where plants are maintained in natural or farm-like conditions. In Kenya, CIFOR-ICRAF has partnered with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization to establish these sites, including a major facility at the Horticultural Research Institute in Thika.
The Thika field genebank currently preserves a massive array of biodiversity, including more than 170 banana varieties, 30 mango varieties and 11 citrus varieties. Because these plants remain living, they can continue to evolve and adapt to the local environment while remaining available for research.
| Method | Storage Type | Best For… | Primary Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Genebanks | Deep-freeze/Airtight | Orthodox seeds (Baobab, Shea) | Power failure/Equipment loss |
| Field Genebanks | Living plantations | Recalcitrant seeds (Mango, Citrus) | Pests/Climate extremes |
Climate-proofing the future of food
The ultimate goal of these efforts is not just preservation, but application. By maintaining a diverse library of genetic traits, breeders can develop new crop varieties that are more resistant to drought, pests and rising temperatures.
Chikelu Mba, deputy director of the Plant Production and Protection Division at FAO, emphasizes that this diversity is the only way to “climate-proof” the continent’s agrifood systems. Without the genetic relatives of major crops and the resilience of wild food plants, the potential to adapt to a changing climate is severely limited.
For the millions of people who rely on these plants for survival, a seed in a vault is more than a scientific sample—it is a promise of future nutrition. As conservationists continue to expand safety duplication and field collections, the focus shifts toward returning these improved varieties to the farmers who first cultivated them.
The next phase of this effort involves increasing the percentage of duplicated collections across all 56 African genebanks to ensure that no single disaster can wipe out a species. Continued funding and international cooperation remain the primary hurdles to achieving total seed security for the continent.
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