Agriculture and nutrition at village level, Underexploited village resources

Developing country villages contain plants, animals and technologies whose extraordinary potentials are poorly appreciated by scientists. Examples of nutritious village crops that are still largely undeveloped and unappreciated outside their traditional villages are the winged bean, amaranths and the tepary bean. Tropical tree legumes, such as leucaena, grow fast and fix nitrogen and--although barely studied by foresters--are promising sources for village firewood and lumber. There are several animals with great promise for use in villages. The water buffalo is a gentle, productive village resource, neglected by the cow used by Indonesian villagers and unknown elsewhere in the tropics. And Papua New Guinea's new village farms for crocodiles and butterflies graphically demonstrate that wildlife husbandry can be valuable for remote rural areas, despite its neglect by animal science. Among exceptionally useful village technologies, an example is the amazingly efficient cooking system used on the small Indonesian islands of Roti and Sumba, which has so far been described only in Captain Cook's journals.