| In many parts of Latin America and Africa, beans are still considered the "meat
of the poor". Their protein content is roughly double that of most cereals and they
are rich in essential micronutrients like iron and folic acid (one of the B vitamins).
Beans are also an important cash earner for poor farmers. About 40% of Africa’s bean
harvest, for example, goes to market, generating farm-gate revenues of about one-quarter
of a billion US dollars per year. Latin America is the world’s leading bean-growing
region, accounting for nearly half of global production. The CIAT bean collection
contains over 40,000 accessions of which 26,500 are cultivated Phaseolus vulgaris,
or common bean. About 1,300 accessions are wild species of P. vulgaris. The rest
are distant relatives. A subset of the overall holdings serves as a core collection for
CIAT’s and other organizations’ bean breeding work. This subset, which is
representative of the diverse environments in which beans have evolved and are grown,
consists of about 1,400 accessions of domesticated common beans and 100 accessions of wild
beans.
Type of reproductive material: seeds.
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