February 10 marks World Pulses Day. There are hundreds of forgotten and sidelined species of beans that could change the game when it comes to improving global food security and cutting world hunger. The world’s human population gets more than half its calories from just three crops: rice, wheat and maize. But these carbohydrate-rich crops require huge amounts of fertilisers and water to grow. The humble bean asks for much less.
The Somali Region Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Institute (SoRPARI) is working to conserve and restore the Yeheb plant. Their latest report describes an intervention in the village of Gambarey, in the eastern part of the Somali Region.
The Yeheb project achieved some impoertant milestones in 2023 including registering as a UK charity. During the year, the security situation in Somalia deteriorated and it was no longer possible to travel safely. The project therefore pivoted to the Somali region of Ethiopia, which we hope to visit in 2024.
Humans are by far the most powerful ecosystem engineers that have ever existed—having the ability to change the environment, to extent of affecting planetary boundaries. What positive changes can we make? How can we improve ecosystems to help us live more sustainably, while sharing our Earth with all the other creatures that inhabit it?
While researching the potential to restore Yeheb, Dr Muna Ismail found new evidence that if the right conditions are met, Yeheb can be cultivated outside of its natural habitat in arid rangelands. A local man by the name of Huute was inspired to collect yeheb seeds from his native Galmudug region of Somalia, where it was growing wild, and plant them in his garden. See Muna’s video of the results!
Pastoral communities living in dryland ecosystems have historically shown ways of coping and absorbing shocks of droughts or effects of famine within their natural ecology. However, in the past 4 decades, droughts in Somalia have become a major problem causing depletion of resources, environmental degradation, impoverishment, loss of livelihood and forced migration.
On 8th July 2016, Farxaan Maxamed Jimcaale of the BBC Somali World Service interviewed Dr Muna Ismail. They discussed the benefits of the Yeheb plant for drought-prone areas in Somalia and Horn of Africa. You can hear the interview (in Somali) on the BBB website.
In December I spent three weeks in Somaliland, testing the possibility of restoring and domesticating Yeheb, a food and fodder crop which grows well in very dry conditions. It is one of those plants that has not found enough interest outside its indigenous habitat. Historically Yeheb used to flourish in the Haud or Savannah pastoralist […]
In December 2015, project leader Dr Muna Ismail made a second journey to Somaliland. Her aim was to plant Yeheb seeds and seedlings at sites that had been identified during the scoping mission earlier in the year. Together, Muna and our local partners managed to reintroduce Yeheb to six sites, exhibiting different habitats and levels of rainfall.
In 2011 there was a massive drought in the Horn of Africa. It was the worst drought in 60 years and Millions of people were affected across the region. There was a serious food crisis in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya; all within the Somali inhabited areas. Hundred thousands fled from Southern Somalia in search […]