**4. Final remarks**

In sub-Saharan Africa, countries rely mostly on agriculture as economic revenue and as a base for smallholder farmers, for both household income and food. Considering the diversity of the farming systems along the different agroecological zonings, evaluating its performance under climate changes is key to determine its future sustainability for alleviating poverty and food security. Overall, major farming systems in SSA are under threat since they are rainfall-dependent and thus pose a scenario of food insecurity if no proper agriculture management and solutions are taken. In this chapter, the potential of pulse crops as a viable and sustainable strategy for upholding farming systems' intercropping and production indices was highlighted. The promotion of legumes adapted to semi- and arid conditions will contribute to the diversity of cropping systems and diets of African people living in rural areas. However, there is a need to address critical knowledge gaps that will allow the full use and advantages to introduce successfully the so-called neglected and underutilized crops, native to Africa, within agricultural and food systems. By exploring native legumes adapted to arid conditions, namely, low rainfall periods, it will be a key tool for adaptation to climate change. This will also contribute to

**55**

*Crops Diversification and the Role of Orphan Legumes to Improve the Sub-Saharan Africa…*

improve soil fertility and enhance food, forage, and mulching quality, which is of main importance particularly for the developing countries. Therefore, promoting its cultivation and implementing different farm management practices will contribute to the resilience of SSA farming systems. As the world celebrated the International Year of Pulses in 2016, there is a need to establish the potential and invest in the innovation of undervalued role that pulses can play in the post-2016 agenda. In spite of their recognized importance, some African native legumes are still underutilized or overlooked crops, and its use is a viable option to raise farming productivity.

The work was funded by the Portuguese Rural Development Program (PDR2020) for the Operational Group STEnCIL, Initiative 27 [PDR2020–1.0.1- FEADER-031465], within the European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) supported by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and undertaken in the scope of project CajOmics [PTDC/AGR-PRO/5727/2014] funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)-FCT/MCTES/PIDDAC, Portugal, and the project CVAgrobiodiversity/333111699 funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The work was supported by FCT funds, to the following research units: LEAF [UID/ AGR/04129/2019] and cE3c [UID/BIA/00329/2019]. FM was individually funded

by FCT-awarded postdoctoral fellowship SFRH/BPD/115162/2016.

, Maria Manuel Romeiras1,2 and Filipa Monteiro1,2\*

2 Faculdade de Ciências, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes

1 Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), Instituto

\*Address all correspondence to: fimonteiro@fc.ul.pt; fmonteiro@isa.ulisboa.pt

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

(cE3c), Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

provided the original work is properly cited.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88076*

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

**Author details**

Patricia Vidigal1

*Crops Diversification and the Role of Orphan Legumes to Improve the Sub-Saharan Africa… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88076*

improve soil fertility and enhance food, forage, and mulching quality, which is of main importance particularly for the developing countries. Therefore, promoting its cultivation and implementing different farm management practices will contribute to the resilience of SSA farming systems. As the world celebrated the International Year of Pulses in 2016, there is a need to establish the potential and invest in the innovation of undervalued role that pulses can play in the post-2016 agenda. In spite of their recognized importance, some African native legumes are still underutilized or overlooked crops, and its use is a viable option to raise farming productivity.
