BamYIELD is one of five research programmes at CFF. It is an international underutilised legume research and breeding programme using bambara groundnut as the exemplar species. The programme spans the entire Research Value Chain (RVC), from production (genetics, physiology, and agronomy) to utilisation (product development, supply chain, end-users and policy). Together with data translation from model and major crops, focused breeding activities and field trials, BamYIELD will optimise the contribution of this legume to food security and poverty alleviation, while developing generic approaches to improve other underutilised legumes.
History and legacy
The bambara groundnut research conducted by the BamYIELD research programme at CFF is built on a solid foundation of previous projects led by the University of Nottingham UK and partners, funded by international agencies such as the European Union (EU), the UK Department For International Development (DFID) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Please click on the document below to read more about the research legacy of BamYIELD.
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In 1995, The International Bambara Groundnut Network (BAMNET) – a network approach for partnership in research and development of a neglected and underutilised crop was developed to enable wider dissemination of research data on bambara groundnut projects. In 2008, the BAMNET website closed down, but has since been resurrected under a new name ‘BamNetwork’ hosted for the community by CFF in 2014 after buy-in from research partners and attendees of the 3rd International Bambara Groundnut workshop held in Accra, Ghana on 24th September, 2013; a side event at the 3rd Neglected and Underutilised Species Conference (3rd NUS2013). Please click on the button below to visit BamNetwork
An integrated programme approachBamYIELD comprises distinct projects along the RVC to maximise the development and contribution of this crop for food, nutritional and income security, and to foster global collaborations and partnerships.
Please click on the document below for more details on each of our projects across the RVC
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Our network of global partners
BamYIELD works with partners to form a global research network of research centres, universities, CGIAR centres, and industry players from Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe. Our partners provide research expertise, facilities and translational research that allows for multiple research projects along the RVC to be carried out simultaneously to achieve the outcomes of BamYIELD: higher yielding, environmentally suited, more resilient bambara groundnut genotypes that can contribute to increasing food security and income generation for subsistence and small scale farmers
Current projects
BamYIELD P1: Multi-locational Field Trials
The establishment of a field trials systems using common germplasm, common protocols, common analysis and with a global integration of data. The system will be able to be applied to most locations and to most crops, including regions in Malaysia currently unsuitable for cultivation of most crops (e.g. poor soils in Eastern Peninsular Malaysia) and underutilised crops currently produced in Malaysia (e.g. winged bean/kacang botol (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus)). It will also form the framework for crops to be developed as rapidly and as cheaply as possible, working with the appropriate established partners worldwide and with proven protocols.
This project extends the field trials system of the ITPGRFA funded project (see below, "Projects Starting in 2016") to include initial work in South Africa (University of KwaZulu Natal) and Zimbabwe (Crop Breeding Institute, Harare). This will also allow an evaluation of genotype-specific composition and environmental (soil and climate) influences, to establish the stability and transferability of compositional and nutritional traits. This will be key data for the processing and utilisation option project under BamYIELD P7.
BamYIELD P7: Nutritional profiling of bambara groundnut and its potential for food product development in Malaysia
Research data on nutritional composition and processing of bambara groundnut is fragmented, partial and lacks comparative analyses, both between researcher reports and to other legume crops. This project aims to generate the quantitative scientific basis that can be used to support nutritional and processing research work on bambara groundnut to facilitate the introduction of this legume as a new processed crop for the Malaysian food market, parallel to efforts to enhance its utilisation globally.
The project has two parts: (1) nutritional and proximate analysis (including starch structure, amino acid profiling, anti-nutritional and mineral content analysis) and physical properties of a core collection of 12 bambara groundnut genotypes in Malaysian soils for which controlled crosses already exist, allowing for evaluation of the effect of soil type, climate and agronomic inputs on the nutritional composition of the legume, and (2) utilisation of the information from (1) to optimise processing methodologies for bambara groundnut seeds to produce new food items developed initially for the Malaysian market.
The establishment of a field trials systems using common germplasm, common protocols, common analysis and with a global integration of data. The system will be able to be applied to most locations and to most crops, including regions in Malaysia currently unsuitable for cultivation of most crops (e.g. poor soils in Eastern Peninsular Malaysia) and underutilised crops currently produced in Malaysia (e.g. winged bean/kacang botol (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus)). It will also form the framework for crops to be developed as rapidly and as cheaply as possible, working with the appropriate established partners worldwide and with proven protocols.
This project extends the field trials system of the ITPGRFA funded project (see below, "Projects Starting in 2016") to include initial work in South Africa (University of KwaZulu Natal) and Zimbabwe (Crop Breeding Institute, Harare). This will also allow an evaluation of genotype-specific composition and environmental (soil and climate) influences, to establish the stability and transferability of compositional and nutritional traits. This will be key data for the processing and utilisation option project under BamYIELD P7.
BamYIELD P7: Nutritional profiling of bambara groundnut and its potential for food product development in Malaysia
Research data on nutritional composition and processing of bambara groundnut is fragmented, partial and lacks comparative analyses, both between researcher reports and to other legume crops. This project aims to generate the quantitative scientific basis that can be used to support nutritional and processing research work on bambara groundnut to facilitate the introduction of this legume as a new processed crop for the Malaysian food market, parallel to efforts to enhance its utilisation globally.
The project has two parts: (1) nutritional and proximate analysis (including starch structure, amino acid profiling, anti-nutritional and mineral content analysis) and physical properties of a core collection of 12 bambara groundnut genotypes in Malaysian soils for which controlled crosses already exist, allowing for evaluation of the effect of soil type, climate and agronomic inputs on the nutritional composition of the legume, and (2) utilisation of the information from (1) to optimise processing methodologies for bambara groundnut seeds to produce new food items developed initially for the Malaysian market.
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) funded project
In March 2015, CFF (as project leader) and partners (The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria (IITA), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Crops Research Institute, Ghana (CSIR-CRI), and Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (BAU)) received grant approval from the ITPGRA (Benefit-sharing Fund Third Round) for the project “Genetic and trait characterisation of farmer and genebank sources of bambara groundnut for the development of drought tolerant lines in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia”. The project will last three years and will involve molecular breeding and field trials with bambara groundnut in four countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Ghana and Nigeria) to improve drought tolerance and reduce the cooking time for this legume. This project has, at its core, a marker supported international breeding and selection programme for bambara groundnut with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. The aim is to improve an already nutritionally valuable and drought resilient legume for food security, environmental protection and income generation for the world’s most vulnerable regions.
