Answers on our plate? Cooking up a fix for hunger

What’s it like to be hungry? Maybe you sometimes miss lunch. But imagine not having enough to eat for days, ormonths. Millions of people go hungry like that in Africa.

There are more and more people. But climate change is making it harder to grow food. Making things worse is the war between Ukraine and Russia. Both countries normally sellwheat to Africa. The fighting means there’s less to buy.

Imagine a superfood?

Imagine if Africans could find a new super food that would grow well without rain or if there were floods. Imagine if Africans could grow enough at home and not have to buy expensive food from abroad?

Moyo imagined just that. Only, she didn’t invent anything new. After school, she went off to study with famous chefs in Switzerland. Far from home, she found herself thinking about all the foods in Nigeria that she didn’t find in Europe – and which even Nigerians had got out of the habit of eating.

She realised Africans had been growing their own food for centuries that could cope much better with the climate and was much healthier for people than things like wheat and rice, which had come from abroad. Now she wants those local foods to be grown more.

Solution for hunger

They can help solve problems like hunger, says Moyo: “These plants are good for the soil, and they’re good for us.”

Now, she is back in Nigeria and, aged just 23, organises restaurant dinners to help people fall in love again with local food like Bambara groundnuts. It’s a kind of bean which contains almost all the elements we need to live. Moyo makes it into a sort of hummus.

“It just makes me happy to be able to share, to be able to tickle senses, open people’s minds, encourage people to explore,” says Moyo. Now, who’s for a delicious plate of Bambara groundnuts?