A Review on Genetic Resources, Diversity and Agronomy of African Yam Bean (Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst. Ex A. Rich.) Harms): A Potential Future Food Crop

Abstract

Food-security and sustainability is a serious global concern in the recent times. Many indigenous food crops of Africa which promises to ameliorate nutritional food insecurities are presently neglected and under-utilized. African yam bean (AYB) is one of such crop with tremendous nutritional potentials. The poor awareness about the taxonomy, agronomy, genetics, medicinal value and productive potential of the crop may be due to limited research on it. The subsistence production of the crop may have been occasioned by its poor acceptability as a valuable crop among middle-aged farmers in Africa. Research information on the crop is patchy in old and poorly accessible literature. There is an indisputable threat of irrecoverable loss of information on AYB especially in old archives. Some quality information on the crop was assembled from old books and proceedings, out-of print journals, pamphlets and recent publications. This review tried to congregate the bits and lumps of information on AYB research into a discrete summary which will create awareness about the future research needs on this crop.