Indigenous crops and smallscale farms: Ruth Oniang’o on Africa’s agricultural future

The Africa Food Prize winner talks about her work with Kenya’s smallholder farmers, and how indigenous crops can be a tool in the battle against food insecurity and climate changeWhen Ruth Oniang’o was working as a nutrition researcher in 1980s Kenya, she noticed an ominous change in the country’s agricultural landscape: regions that had once provided a diversity of nutritious food crops were being turned over to cash crops like sugarcane. Grown mostly for export, these crops w