Developing the role of legumes in West Africa under climate change

Abstract

West Africa is faced with significant challenges from climate change, including parts of the region becoming hotter with more variable rainfall. The Sahelian region in particular is already subject to severe droughts. To address this better adapted crop varieties (such as for cowpea) are clearly a central element, a complementary one is a greater use of resilient alternative crops especially underutilized legumes particularly Bambara groundnut, African yam bean, winged bean and Kersting's groundnut. Genetic diversity of these crops conserved in genebanks and farmer's field provides an opportunity to exploit climate resilient traits using cutting-edge genomic tools and to use genomics-assisted breeding to accelerate genetic gains in combination of rapid cycle breeding strategy to develop climate-resilient cultivars for sub-Saharan Africa.