Abstract
Malnutrition afflicts a large number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Orphan crops, such as Taro plants, can play critical roles in ensuring global food and nutritional security in this regard. Nigeria is the world's leading producer of taro. It is primarily consumed as a main component or as a soup thickener by resource-poor rural residents in Nigeria's south-eastern regions. The corm contains a lot of carbohydrates, while the leaves have a lot of protein. Furthermore, its social and medicinal importance should not be overlooked. It is, however, a food resource that is underutilized and receives little attention from scientists. Farmers cultivate it on a small scale, and its commercial importance is primarily limited to the local area, implying that farmers are the primary users and keepers of taro genetic diversity. As a result, they've gained some valuable experience in identifying and preserving cultivars they prefer, as well as developing utilization patterns (culinary diversity) for the cultivars they've kept. Information on farmers' knowledge of taro utilization patterns, cultivar maintenance, and culinary diversity is scarce in Nigeria, particularly in the south-eastern region. The purpose of this study is to review existing literature on farmers' and consumers' perceptions and preferences for taro in order to provide insight into knowledge of taro food use, benefits, and potential brand foods. It also addresses key bottlenecks that impede taro production and consumption in Nigeria, paving the way for increased taro production and adoption by both farmers and consumers.
Highlights
Taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Scott] is a 9,000-year-old ariod food crop with a 2000-year cultivation history [1]
Colocasia esculenta is the scientific name for cultivated taro, and the species is polymorphic, with two botanical varieties or forms, namely Colocasia esculenta var. esculenta and C. esculenta var. antiquroum [14]
Jianchu et al [15] studied taro diversity in China's Yunnan Province and discovered five uses based on morphotypes of taro as classified by farmers: (1) inflorescence, which produces abundant flowers eaten as a vegetable; (2) single corm, of up to 2 kg fresh weight with few cormels; (3) multicormel, which has many cormels with better quality and yield than the corm; (4) multicorm, which has similar sized corms and cormels; and (5) petiole, where that structure is eaten as a vegetable but corms are poorly developed and long stolon’s are produced
Summary
Taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Scott] is a 9,000-year-old ariod food crop with a 2000-year cultivation history [1]. Taro is grown for its starchy corm [6] and sometimes the leaves, petioles and inflorescences are edible [1] It has a high mineral and vitamin content while having a low fat, fiber, and ash content. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the National Root Crop Research Institute of Nigeria worked together to collect and preserve taro landraces. They lost all of the taro genetic materials during the outbreak of taro leaf blight disease in West Africa [12].
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