Special Issue "Underutilized Plant Species: Leveraging Food and Nutritional Security, and Income Generation"

Guest Editor
Dr. Jacqueline Hughes
AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center, P.O. Box 42, Shanhua, Tainan 74199, Taiwan
E-Mail: jackie.hughes@worldveg.org
Phone: +866 6 5837801
Interests: vegetables; traditional crops; crop protection; diet diversification; postharvest; quarantine; nutrition

Dear Colleagues,

The world is precariously dependent on a limited number of food crop species despite its wealth of traditional, locally-adapted underutilized species.  In many cases, the underutilised species have a much higher nutrient content than globally known species or varieties, even though they may not be fully suited to conventional production systems.  With climate uncertainty, there is an urgent need to diversify our food base to a wider range of food crop species for greater system resilience.  Promoting the use of underutilized species (vegetables, fruit, starchy crops and condiments) needs to be achieved by highlighting their importance in their current production areas as well as exploiting further opportunities to extend their production and consumption.  Promotion of these species, and the development of their value chains, must be based on rigorous scientific methods which will enable us to remove the stigma of ‘food for the poor’ which often hinders their popularization and new demand creation.  More research for development including conservation, selection, breeding, production, nutrition studies, postharvest value-addition and advocating consumption as part of a balanced diet will facilitate some of these underutilized species transitioning into crops that can better support development and the quality of life.

Dr. Jacqueline Hughes
Guest Editor

Submission

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• underutilized species
• sustainability
• biodiversity
• germplasm conservation
• nutrition
• poverty
• climate change