Abstract
Kersting’s groundnut is a tropical crop, highly nutritious, adapted to drought-prone areas. The crop is neglected both by researchers and by policy makers. This paper aimed at providing relevant information on the current status of the crop and the prospects to promote its improvement and production. To this end, available papers addressing any of the following aspect: distribution, nutritional value, cropping systems, post-harvest processing, usages, value chains, conservation status, genetic diversity and improvement of Kersting’s groundnut were reviewed. In West Africa, the crop provides substantial income for rural population. Kersting’s groundnut has several medicinal uses and cultural values as well. However, because of its intensive labor requirement, low yield and non-availability of improved varieties, its cultivation is declining and it is even disappearing gradually in some growing areas. The promotion of the crop’s value chains is an option for reversing the declining trend in Kersting’s groundnut cultivation. In recent years, some progress has been recorded in the collection, characterization and ex situ conservation of the crop. Thus, there are currently about 100 accessions conserved in various gene banks in Benin, Ghana, France and Belgium. This is still insufficient as compared to the genetic resources available in ex situ for most of the grown legume crops. To cope with this, extensive germplasm collection and their systematic characterization and evaluation coupled with new generation genomic tools need to be undertaken. For this purpose, genomic resources developed for Kersting’s groundnut-related species will be valuable assets. The exploitation of genomic resources will enable the development of core and mini-core collections for conservation and breeding purposes. In addition, the use of genomic resources will speed up Kersting’s groundnut breeding programs. Furthermore, the genetic base of the crop is extremely narrow and there is a need to broaden it for substantial genetic gain in breeding programs. For this purpose, mutation induction has been proposed as technique to increase variability in the Kersting’s groundnut germplasm. Invest in Kersting’s groundnut research is key to ensure the conservation and exploit the potential of the crop.
Highlights
The ever rising of the global population with a slow food production threatens food security, especially in developing countries [1,2,3,4]
Neglected crop species are under-represented in conservation efforts both in situ and ex situ, and even the direct stakeholders involved in their production, commercialization and processing have limited knowledge on their economic potential [6, 16, 17]
In order to reverse this trend, a strategy for on-farm conservation and promotion of the crop will rely on the increase of market value and the development of the crop-based value chains [17]
Summary
The ever rising of the global population with a slow food production threatens food security, especially in developing countries [1,2,3,4]. Beyond the reported constraints hampering the cultivation of Kersting’s groundnut, the relatively low economic value and poor market access in many of the growing areas are the key reasons for its abandonment [27] This status may be explained by the lack of added value to the product which is sold as dry seeds. In order to reverse this trend, a strategy for on-farm conservation and promotion of the crop will rely on the increase of market value and the development of the crop-based value chains [17] For this purpose, seeds processing into flour and incorporation into industrial and infantile food formulations will contribute to add more value to Kersting’s groundnut seeds and to gain market share. The gradual disappearance of the crop from production systems was observed in Ghana
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