Morocco: Promote 'forgotten crops' to fight malnutrition and drought in Africa

Published Jun 17, 2024

Tridge summary

The Mohamed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco has introduced PHENO-MA, a phenotyping platform aimed at promoting 'forgotten crops' like cowpeas and millet, which are resilient to heat and drought. This initiative focuses on adapting agricultural production to climate change and addressing malnutrition in Africa by selecting the most resilient crop varieties. Utilizing advanced techniques, the platform studies legumes and cereals that enhance soil fertility and offer high nutritional value, despite being economically overlooked. The project aims to provide homegrown solutions to Africa's agricultural challenges.

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Original content

Benguerir (Morocco), June 17 (EFE).- Promoting 'forgotten crops' such as cowpeas or millet and demonstrating their resistance to heat and drought is one of the projects of the agricultural analysis platform of the Mohamed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) of Morocco, which seeks to adapt agricultural production to climate change and fight malnutrition in Africa. Launched almost six months ago, this phenotyping platform named PHENO-MA studies the behavior of legumes and cereals using an artificial observation method that replaces the classic and time-consuming methods of human observation. In search of the most resistant varieties The platform focuses on the so-called 'forgotten crops' or NUS (for its acronym in English) of legumes such as lentils, broad beans and chickpeas, and cereals such as cowpeas and millet, because they improve soil fertility, resist heat well and drought and have high nutritional properties, although they are normally discarded due to their low economic ...

Source: Elperiodicodemexico