Agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa is largely focused on a few staple crops, including maize and rice, with their productivity increasingly affected by climate, soil, and resource use issues. In contrast, neglected and underutilized crops, including sorghum, finger millet, cowpea, and groundnut, have drought resistance, lower resource requirements, and high nutritional benefits, yet they have been ignored in research and policy development. While there is evidence of sustainability benefits associated with neglected and underutilized crops, there is limited evidence on their relative economic productivity to staple crops at the national level in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research aims to address this gap in knowledge with a comparative analysis of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of neglected and underutilized crops relative to staple crops in Uganda and South Africa.

The research used a sequential mixed-methods approach with Phase I consisting of an Integrative Literature Review of 38 sources between 2010 and 2025 to provide a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the sustainability contributions of NUCs to climate resilience, soil health, resource use, and nutrition, among other benefits. while Phase II used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate static technical efficiencies, with the Malmquist Productivity Index applied to estimate inter-temporal changes in TFP with components of Efficiency Change (Effch) and Technical Change (Techch).

The research shows that NUCs can produce comparable productivity at much lower input intensity, thus making NUCs economically viable components of sustainable intensification and climate-smart agriculture. By shifting the productivity debate from yield maximization to resource use efficiency, this research offers evidence to support context-specific diversification policies in Uganda and South Africa for building resilience in their food systems.

Landraces, locally adapted and traditional crop varieties, play a crucial role for indigenous communities across the globe, shaping identity through nutritional, spiritual, medicinal, and environmental values. However, in Brazil, centuries of colonization and recent urbanization have disrupted human-nature relationships embodied in food, eroding the wealth of cultivated edible biodiversity. This is leaving many landraces as neglected and underutilized species, threatening their linked environmental interactions and traditional diets. This study seeks to understand the complex relationships of indigenous people to landraces in urban areas. Through semi-structured qualitative interviews with twenty Guarani participants, we investigate values, access, and practices, as well as barriers and enablers to the access and use of landraces in the city. Our interviews are conducted across three indigenous communities in São Paulo. We focus on selected representative landraces, neglected and underutilized varieties of maize, sweet potato, and cassava. Our interviews are analyzed with MAXQDA.

Our research takes a food systems lens to uncover how people-nature relationships of indigenous communities are transformed by dynamics of urbanization. Our results may inform the promotion of neglected and underutilized species as an entry point to integral indigenous communities in urban areas.

Sufficient provision of plant-based proteins is a widely discussed topic in European agriculture, with a growing demand for such products. Commonly cultivated protein providing crops such as Field Pea (Pisum sativum) and Fava bean (Vicia faba) are increasingly impacted by climate change induced heat and drought stress under German climatic conditions. Introducing species of the genus Vigna addresses both issues at once. The species Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata subsp. unguiculata), Adzuki-bean (Vigna angularis), Mungbean (Vigna radiata) and Urad-Bean (Vigna mungo) are well adapted to high temperatures and drought conditions. They are well established crops in many countries, with value chains, ancient traditions of cultivation, dedicated breeding programs and many available genotypes. They are cultivated only to a small extent in Europe and relatively unknown amongst consumers.

To assess the suitability of these species under German climatic conditions, a screening of 81 genotypes, consisting of 68 accessions from the Genebank of the IPK at Gatersleben and 13 additional varieties was started in the year 2025 under the Project BOENLE. For each species 20 varieties and accessions were selected and cultivated in the field and a greenhouse in pots at both the University of Hohenheim and the IPK Gatersleben. Detailed data on plant development, phenotypical differences and yield were collected. Preliminary results of the first growing season show that all four species can be established in Germany, with 5 genotypes not germinating. In the field trial at IPK Gatersleben over 90 % of genotypes reached the flowering stage and 65 % produced ripe pods. In the Hohenheim trial, 84 % of genotypes reached the flowering stage and 47 % produced ripe pods. The screening is continued in 2026 and underperforming varieties are replaced with new material.

Ecological resilience plays a central role in food systems resilience, and agrobiodiversity can often (though not always) bolster resilience as it supports the principles of diversity and redundancy (Bravo–Peña & Yoder, 2024, p. 10; Folke, 2006, p. 258). In the past, value chain approaches to research and intervention have resulted in siloed and reductive problem-solving (Subedi et al., 2025, pp. 1-2). There is a need to understand what conditions foster farmers’ continued management of agrobiodiversity (ABD), and circumstances that hinder it (Bellon et al., 2018, p. 8). Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) is classified as an ‘underutilised’ crop, and researchers posit it may bolster food systems resilience as well as food security due to its drought tolerance (Jideani & Jideani, 2021, p. 2; Karl et al., 2024; Mayes et al., 2019, pp. 814-815). Following Donella Meadows, this study took a systems approach to ‘zoom in’ and zoom out’ to investigate the dynamics of Bambara seed systems in Singida, Tanzania. At the macro-level, system maps (systemigrams) were created from a literature review and vetted through semi-structured interviews to explore how select food systems drivers in Tanzania shape the Bambara production. At the micro-level, 100 farmer surveys were collected for social network analysis to understand how gender and social identities that intersect with it affect how select farmers in Singida acquire and distribute BGN seeds. The expected results of the study are an identification of leverage points on the systems map for improving Bambara seed systems in Tanzania, as well as a clearer understanding of the social identities that structure seed flows. Overall, the study seeks to demonstrate how multi-scalar systems-informed research approaches may contribute to strengthening underutilised crop value chains and expanding our understanding of in-situ conservation of agrobiodiversity.

Mediterranean island landscapes are places of rich biocultural diversity, fostered by traditional land use practices and traditional ecological knowledge, supporting both wild and on-farm biodiversity, and an elaborate food culture. In this study, we use a social-ecological perspective to investigate neglected crop and livestock species as an anchor point for human-nature-relationships in agricultural landscapes. We choose the Mediterranean island of Sardinia (Italy) as a case study, where intensive trade exchange, but long periods of economic and political isolation from the main land have contributed both to an especially rich food heritage, and a particularly good conservation of local landraces and cultivars. We conduct 40 qualitative interviews with farmers and shepherds, to elicit intrinsic, instrumental and relational values they associate with selected local crop and livestock breeds. Our study further identifies knowledge, practices and strategies of safekeeping agrobiodiversity. Uncovering barriers and enabling factors, we investigate conditions that support agrobiodiversity in the Mediterranean. These results can inform how to promote crop and livestock types that provide multiple values into agricultural systems.

Indigenous and underutilised crops are plant species that have historically supported traditional farming systems and local diets for generations but receive limited attention in global agricultural research, breeding programmes, and commercial markets compared with major staple crops such as rice, wheat, and maize. Examples include quinoa, amaranth, millet etc. These crops are often, micronutrient-dense, tolerant to drought, poor soils, and other suboptimal growing conditions.

Global food systems continue to face increasing pressure from population growth, climate change, biodiversity loss, and declining availability of arable land, and heavy reliance on a narrow range of staple crops increases vulnerability to climatic shocks and threatens long-term food security. Indigenous crops presents as natural insurance for food security in adverse times and diversify agricultural production systems, particularly in marginal environments such as semi-arid regions and degraded soils where conventional staples perform poorly.

However, initiatives aimed at promoting these crops often overlook the importance of local ecological and socio-economic conditions that influence their successful integration into farming systems. Within the framework of Agroecology, crop selection and management practices must align with local environmental conditions, cultural preferences, and existing production systems.

This study examines the agroecological relevance of integrating indigenous and underutilised crops into diverse agricultural landscapes, with particular attention to context-specific factors influencing adoption and productivity. Through a synthesis of available peer-reviewed literature the study explores how environmental variables such as climate, soil characteristics, and water availability interact with socio-economic factors including farmer knowledge, market access, and dietary traditions.

The findings suggest that although indigenous crops possess adaptive traits suited to challenging environments, their successful integration depends on locally tailored strategies that reflect regional agroecosystems and community needs. Promoting these crops therefore requires place-based research, participatory approaches, and supportive policies that recognise the diversity of farming contexts.

The macaúba palm (Acrocomia aculeata) is increasingly recognized as a promising alternative oil crop in Brazil due to its ecological adaptability, high oil yields, and potential to generate co-products such as proteins and fibers. Unlike conventional tropical oil crops like African oil palm, macaúba can be established on degraded pasturelands in Brazil’s Cerrado biome, offering opportunities for ecological restoration and rural development while reducing deforestation pressure on tropical forests.¶

This study applies an integrated multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework to three municipalities in the State of Minas Gerais, each hosting distinct macaúba cultivation and value chain initiatives. Spatial datasets were selected and organized into three MCDA pillars: (i) Biophysical–environmental feasibility combines a macaúba suitability map with pasture-degradation layer, after masking protected areas to ensure legal compliance while avoiding conflicts with biodiversity-conservation priorities; (ii) Techno-economic viability is represented by an infrastructure proximity index based on distances to warehouses, urban-centers, and highways; (iii) Socio-institutional desirability is captured through a community rural density index as proxy for rural labor and social presence. Land-use and land-cover data are used to distinguish pasture and crop systems and assess where macaúba can be integrated via silvopastoral, agroforestry, or plantation configurations. From these layers, a composite implementability index and a production system typology map were developed, classifying map cells as plantation, community/commercial silvopastoral, or agroforestry with coffee, soybean, or other-annual-crops. Results indicate that the municipalities i.e., João Pinheiro offers areas suitable for plantation-oriented models, Montes Claros supports a hybrid pattern combining

plantations and community silvopastoral systems, and Patos de Minas presents a diversified agroforestry and community silvopastoral typologies aligning with existing land-use patterns. The study shows that macaúba expansion and value chain development in Brazil should be guided by typology-aware spatial analysis rather than climate suitability or investment opportunity alone