Copyright Eden Foundation
Meet Alhadji Bukar, an Eden farmer in the Tanout area.

Copyright Eden Foundation
14 years ago, Alhadji Bukar joined the Eden program and started to sow edible trees and bushes in his field. Today, these trees and bushes are well established and produce food, even during years where there is little rain. The Eden trees [...]

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One of the greatest luxury ingredients I know is actually a former Western famine food.

My grandmother Vivi Stranne showcasing handpicked mushrooms straight from nature’s pantry (1988)
Handpicked Swedish mushrooms that have grown wild in the forest are among my favorite culinary treats. Somehow, the combination of taste and texture make them such a generous contributor [...]

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Copyright Eden Foundation
The Eden farmers and their families mix the cooked Maerua crassifolia leaves with crushed peanuts, decorate with an onion and sell it in the village. There is a lot of money to be made this way, because the meal is good!
And so when making one of the two casseroles I was going to [...]

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From a world market perspective - where the global spotlight stays focused on a handful of species that still produce the majority of the food despite the fact that there is a total of 78,000 edible species available in the world (an untapped resource for the upcoming ‘world food crisis’) - it would not be [...]

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With the Maerua crassifolia (jiga) bushes in my garden full of fresh leaves, I was itching to try a new recipe. A sudden burst of inspiration had me land on making a Maerua crassifolia risotto, with the aim of doing something simple, nutritious and nice - though not overdone. After all, with Maerua crassifolia being [...]

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Famine food is supposed to refer to food that is consumed in times of great need and which can act as a indication of famine or extreme difficulties, but more often than not, famine food is a derogative expression for local food in remote places that rest of the world knows little or nothing about. [...]

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A great wrong is being done to an entire food culture when indigenous Nigerien foods are referred to as “famine food”, just because the West does not know them. When Hilary Andersson of the BBC came to Niger in 2004-05, her team filmed people eating leaves, and Ms Anderson concluded in her reports that they [...]

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