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1 A productivity growth rates in Africa have lagged behind the rest of the world due to lack of investment in agriculture in general and in agricultural research and development (R&D) in particular.1,2 Low productivity has especially affected basic African food crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, sweet potato and cowpea, which are barely traded inter nationally and which benefited very little from the advances in plant breeding of the Green Revolution.3 But it is not just African crops that have been overlooked; African livestock and aqua culture have also suf fered benign neglect, and their poten tial remains largely underexploited. Philipp Aerni