The Tropical Agriculturalist Food Legumes

The relative composition of carbohydrates and lipids in legumes and their richness in proteins make them important components of the food ration, particularly when there is an insufficiency of proteins of animal origin, a typical situation in many tropical developing countries.

This publication contains scientific and technical data, and attempts to solve various problems related to tropical crops.

The increased production of food legumes is recommended by nutritionists and supported as a general policy by many government services and international organizations.

Particular problems covered in this work include: the botanical and nomenclatural difficulties - due to the existence of a multiplicity of species and sub-species, the complex systematics, the existence of numerous synonyms and an abundance of regional and vernacular names; regarding cultural practices - there is a diversity of potentially suitable environmental conditions and, as a consequence, of cultural methods which should be used in the various cropping systems involved. For example, what similarities exist between the industrial cultivation of soya bean and the traditional cultivation of groundnut or Bambarra groundnut?; concerning everyday uses and any eventual processing - account has to be taken of the differences in composition of the product, particularly the very high oil content of the seeds of certain species which may also be included in the category of oil-producing crops; finally, the uses of many legumes in livestock feed production are also shown.

Marc Borget has attempted to solve these problems by treating them in general terms when it is necessary to do so, and also by studying in greater depth a selection of ten species which are considered to be the most important leguminous food crops for the tropical regions, particularly in Africa.