The University of Namibia has initiated a groundbreaking European Union-funded project to domesticate a highly nutritious wild bean plant - the Marama - to save it from extinction, improve the nutrition of people and reduce poverty.
This is the first time that plant biologists will try to domesticate the Marama.
The initiative has generated international interest among top plant scientists and donors that include the United Kingdom-based Kirkhouse Trust and the MacGregor Foundation of the United States of America. A Namibian-based mobile telecommunications company has also expressed interest in the project.The project is particularly important for Namibia, a semi-arid country with limited commercial crop production options.
Experts say domestication refers to the process of making a population of plants or animals used to human provision and control.
A plant biologist, Dr Percy Chimwamurombe of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Namibia, is leading a team of scientists ...to implement the domestication project which is expected to run for 18 years.
The project has also recruited two Masters students: Mutsa Takundwa and Emmanuel Nepolo and a PhD student employed by Namibia's Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry.
Marama is a Setswana word for Tylosema esculentum, a wild, pod-bearing perennial plant that for many centuries has been eaten by some people and animals in sub-Saharan Africa but is now threatened by over-exploitation and urbanisation.The Marama can still be seen in some parts of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. In Namibia it is distributed in Omaheke, Otjizondjupa (Otjiwarogo and surrounding areas), Groofontein and Khomas Region. In South Africa it occurs in northern Gauteng but is in grave danger of extinction because of massive construction of roads, shopping malls, houses and other buildings (anthropogenic practices). The OvaHerero of Namibia call Marama beans Ombanui and call the plant that bears the beans Otjipia.
Previous works have shown that the Marama beans, which people collect when they are dry and eat them after roasting them, are more protein-rich than most domesticated beans that include the common bean, Soya bean and cowpeas. The Marama plant also produces tubers, which people dig up and eat after boiling them. Chimwamurombe said studies have confirmed that the tubers have higher starch content than the Irish potato.
An intriguing characteristic of the Marama bean is that, unlike all other known legumes that fix and take up nitrogen in the soil, it does not fix nitrogen, even though it is supremely nutritious.
"This is very unusual. We still do not know how this is so," Chimwamurombe said.
He said while goats and other browsers eat the plant, which thrives in the deep, red soils of the Kalahari, its greatest threat is people, who dig up its tubers and thus limit its lifespan and interfere with its reproduction capacity.
"A conservation and domestication programme was therefore necessary to protect the plant," he said, adding that a study on genetic diversity and gathering of the plant's breeding information for the development of the plant from a wild to a cultivated and domesticated one had begun in earnest.
Chimwamurombe said communities would be identified to participate in a pilot project to cultivate selected Marama types as part of the community-based natural resources management programme. Marama plants differ in inter-nodal length from short, medium to long, and in the number of seeds per pod, which varies from one to 10.
"The average number of seeds per pod is two so there is need to identify superior individuals in terms of production efficiency and nutrient quality," he said.
The Marama already has an economic value. Its seeds are used to produce hair treatment chemicals, and some companies in the United Kingdom have patented it. It is unclear if the San, the first known people to use its seeds to treat their hair, are benefiting from the patents.www.southerntimesafrica.com
