Wonderwise: African Plant Explorer

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

“When I look at plants, I see both food and medicine. In fact, sometimes the two are intertwined. That is, what is eaten as food can have medicinal effects, and sometimes what we’re calling a medicine, actually is also a food.”

Biological anthropologist Fatimah Jackson takes viewers on an exotic journey from her lab at the University of Maryland to Uganda in central Africa as she studies how one of the world’s most popular root crops, cassava, can be used as both food and medicine. Traveling with her 10 year-old son, Hasan, Fatimah teams up with horticulturist Olivia Maganyi, curator of the Makarere University herbarium, to conduct her research. Together, they travel to cassava research fields, outdoor markets, an international convention, and a rural farm to exchange views in English and Swahili with scientists, villagers and farmers.