Across Africa, a quiet revolution is stirring in kitchens and markets.
This is because demand for organic indigenous foods has been surging to newfound heights.
Like a ripe mango plucked from the tree of tradition, the flavours and aromas of ancestral cuisine are being rediscovered, savoured, and celebrated.
Stimulated by an emerging consciousness and the pursuit for healthier diets and lifestyles, conversations around indigenous cuisines are becoming popular.
In addition to this, climate change vulnerability and cyclical droughts in Zimbabwe and across Africa have forced rural households to rethink their food palate.
They are increasingly looking more inwards to sustain their livelihoods.
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Yet, as more households increasingly seek out the authentic tastes and nutritional benefits of Africa's indigenous foods, concerns linger about the continent's readiness to meet this growing demand.
Questions arising include: “Can Africa's smallholder farmers scale up production while maintaining the integrity of their organic practices?” “Will the packaging and preservation methods employed be sufficient to ensure the quality and safety of these delicate foods? Is there adequate technological support and innovation for processing small grains?”
These questions require an urgent response as the continent moves towards asset based agroecology.
Last month, the Goromonzi Organic Farmers Association (Gofa) and Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre (FPC) hosted the 2024 edition of the Traditional Food and Seeds Festival at Bhora shopping centre in Goromonzi.
The event was held to help participants share and explore the diverse Zimbabwean foods available on the market.
The event ran under the theme "Celebrating the Diversity and Resilience of Zimbabwean Foods’’.
An expert, Dr Mashingaidze from Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre pointed to the importance of reviving the Zimbabwean palate, starting from prioritising indigenous seeds, which he intimated were ‘resilient to the emerging harsh climatic conditions’.
He said these could survive and in turn feed the nation.
Dr Mashingaidze said traditional foods contributed immensely to African’s health.
The story of climate change resilience was told in a simple manner at the event.
This was mostly from the women of Mashonaland Central Province, who showcased common dried cowpea leaves, secretly kept red groundnut varieties and herbs of all kinds and purposes.
The growing interest in cassava and a range of teas that requires serious attention from modern food innovators and industrialists was also among the major points of discussion.
The idea was to make sure all this is packaged in the simplest and low cost manner that is synonymous with indigenous foods.
For now, they are often presented as they come.
In that lies a huge limitation.
The story of the indigenous palate is often a boring and sombre one.
There have been tales of high labour intensity to grow and process millet.
The product is often not the best flour with, heavy grit, which is a source of worry for some.
The local machinery market has attempted to move into the small grain processing space, albeit with limited success.
To date, available threshers of millet cannot fully eliminate the grit that worries some consumers.
Fast forward to this month – there is the just ended African Agroecological Entrepreneurship and Territorial Markets event, which was part of the calendar.
The first of its kind, the gathering took place in Zimbabwe.
Organised by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and localised by multiple Pelum Associations across Africa, the event brought together agroecological entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers, farmers, and civil society to advance and deliberate on sustainable, healthy, and resilient food systems across Africa.
The event was a convergence of three key gatherings.
These were the 2nd African Agroecological Entrepreneurship and Territorial Markets Convening (AAE), the 5th Biennial Food Systems Conference (BFSC), and the Zimbabwe Good Seed and Food Festival.
The AAE focused on empowering Africa's agroecological entrepreneurs and strengthening territorial markets as vital pillars of sustainable food systems.
The event offered an opportunity for African food and farming enthusiasts from different countries to showcase their indigenous foods.
It also created a platform for knowledge and seed exchange.
In addition, the event created room for participants from outside Africa to experience the neater version of rural life through lodging and living agroecology education provided by Kufunda Village and Habitation of Hope.
Those that passed through the closing Good Seed and Food Festival can attest to the wide range of cuisines and African food on offer from the different kinds of energy boosters from Cameroon, to the dried okra from Nigeria, moringa soups from Zambia and the heightened interest in the sausage fruit.
The fruit, without any backing from concrete scientific research, is the fruit and tree of the moment.
There is also the growing rise in hemp hair and beard supplements.
We argued on the last day on the identification of millets because as it were we had to assist our visiting colleagues understand these foods.
The issue of millets came to the forefront of the raging debate.
Is mhunga zviyo, is the pearl millet the red kind or the white one?
What is the Shona word for Raphoko? The knowledge ecosystem on our indigenous foods is broken and cannot compete with Gen Z and millennials understanding of the platter and seafood concepts.
This was a raging topic throughout the days of the events.
One senses that without securing the knowledge, the information gaps frustrate any shift towards more indigenous foods.
The conference encouraged agroecological entrepreneurship and nurturing growth and resilience in Africa's agroecological sector, as well as the creation of Territorial Markets, which enhance market access and promote local food systems.
Emphasis was placed on Food Sovereignty through intentionally celebrating Africa's rich food heritage and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.
Policy advocacy is also important in promoting policies that support agroecological entrepreneurship and territorial markets development.
Across Africa, there has been a general agreement that the following factors have affected how we perceive and approach indigenous foods.
To begin with, our colonial legacy tilts us more towards a preference for Western foods over traditional ones. Globalisation, by default, has exposed us to the dominance of global food systems, making local foods less competitive.
Africa’s rapid urbanisation brings with it a shift from traditional to modern diets, especially among Gen Z. Indigenous foods have limited formal marketing.
As we toured Mbare in Harare, fellow Africans drew similarities of the set up to what is experienced in their countries.
There is a serious gap in documentation.
This limited research and documentation on indigenous foods, coupled with intergenerational knowledge sharing decline, makes the situation worse for indigenous food sustainability.
Universally, climate change and its impact have had a definitive impact on the availability and quality of indigenous ingredients availability. Often the best cuisines like mutakura require a good supply of peanuts, roundnuts, maize and cowpeas.
It does not work when the harvests are low during droughts.
This, against a background of policy and regulation favouring industrial agriculture, and by extension, encouraging commercial fast food outlets over indigenous food ones, does not give them a chance.
This is because of the limited funding availed to them.
There is a long standing stigma and negative perception towards indigenous foods as "poor people's food".
There are no standards to indigenous foods, and this is not favourable for commercial markets. Processing and preserving traditional foods is cumbersome.
Limited technological support exists for this purpose.
Addressing these challenges requires a collaborative effort from governments, civil society, researchers, and communities to promote and preserve Africa's rich indigenous food heritage.
Mafa is an agricultural economist, co-founder Rima Africa Trust Zimbabwe, alumni at Community Solutions Programme and Climate Technology and Finance Lead at Food Justice Network Zimbabwe. These weekly New Perspectives articles, published in the Zimbabwe Independent, are coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge, an independent consultant, managing consultant of Zawale Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, past president of the Zimbabwe Economics Society and past president of the Chartered Governance & Accountancy Institute in Zimbabwe (CGI Zimbabwe). — kadenge.zes@gmail.com or mobile: +263 772 382 852.