Nigeria: Gene Modified Crops Debate Rages

... many African countries are reluctant to approve the use of GMOs.



Nigeria officially signed the Biosafety Bill into law in 2015, making it eligible to join the league of nations that are already using genetic engineering (GE), also called genetic modification (GM), to boost food production. Since then, there has been a protracted debate over the application of genetically modified crops into the food system in Nigeria. These protracted debates over their use and possible dangers have birthed two groups- Pro-GMO and Anti-GMO.

Despite the clear link between agricultural productivity and technology, there are, however, uncertainties and confusion in government responses to a wide range of agricultural, health, social, economic and environmental issues associated with the application and regulation of modern biotechnology in agricultural practice.


[..there is..] growing opposition by a coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) against the introduction of GMOs in the country.

Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Mr. Nnimo Bassey, argued that use of gene drive organisms has the potential of wiping off whole species of organisms. He argued that doors will be open for all sorts of synthetic organisms to be released or experimented on in Nigeria.

President of the Nigeria Institute of Food, Science and Technology (NIFST), Dahiru Adamu, said,

“genetically modified seeds would make it impossible for our local seedlings to be productive for farmers and the nation. Once we allow genetically modified seeds to come into Nigeria to be planted by our farmers, which may mark the end of Nigeria. This is because by the time these seedlings are planted, one, two to five years, it will compare with our local seedlings and will not allow them to germinate. This will lead us to buying seeds from them and therefore, hold us to ransom, and become the determinant factor whether the country gets food or not and in turn become a big problem for the country.” .

...the Managing Director of Global Prolife Alliance (GPA), a leading health, legal and environmental organisation, Prof. Philip C. Njemanze, said, “In an environment like Nigeria where corruption prevails, the biotechnology companies could bribe officials to look the other way on crucial information on the health hazards of GMO crops.”

Njemanze said, “The rising rate of cancers, infertility, mental diseases, and autistic spectrum disorders in children in Nigeria is related to the increasing use of Monsanto Roundup pesticide – Glysophate. The pesticide when used kills weeds but spares GMO crops.”

However, pro-GMO civil society groups led by the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Consortium (NBBC) has said the development of the Pod-Borer Resistant Cowpea (PBR-Cowpea), a GMO product is a confirmation of our expertise in Nigeria to be able to provide a home grown solution to our pest and diseases problems in agriculture.

President of NBBC Celestine Aguoru argued that the modification of beans, just one crop, has brought so many benefits to the country. He said: “The benefits include reduction in the use of dangerous chemicals, protection of Nigeria’s position as the largest producer of beans.

“Reduction in the spending of Nigeria’s foreign exchange in the purchase of over 500,000 tons of beans annually from other countries. Farmers can now heave a sigh of relief from chemicals which they have to spray about 10 times for each beans season and that Nigeria is going to save a lot of foreign exchange used in the importation of chemicals,” said Aguoru.

He further said: “We are also using this platform to call on the federal government to ignore the call by the non-scientific activists to ban the GM beans because it is safe and poses no proven harm to human or animals. We urge the Federal Government to increase budgetary allocations to universities and research institutes to enable them undertake research that meets national aspirations as we have seen in this case of PBR Cowpea.

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https://www.blueprint.ng/much-ado-about-genetically-modified-food/

Local seeds vital to recovery of crop diversity after natural calamities: study

Seeds of local crop varieties must be included in relief-seed packages distributed to small-scale farmers after natural calamities if indigenous agricultural diversity is to rebound faster. Agricultural relief efforts should also capitalize on existing social networks to distribute seeds more effectively and efficiently.

These are among the findings of a recent study looking into the loss and subsequent recovery of cowpea diversity in Mozambique after massive flooding, followed by severe drought, hit most of the country about 11 years ago.

After natural disasters such as floods and drought that often wipe-out their crops, farmers usually receive relief seed packages to help them recover and restore their food security and source of income. However, most of the seeds in these relief packages are generally of introduced and genetically uniform varieties purchased from markets or from seed companies by well-meaning relief agencies, which slow the recovery of crop diversity.

Interestingly, the study also noted that the speedy recovery of Mozambican cowpea diversity after the double-disasters of 2000 was largely due to the exchange of seeds among farmers through gifting and other social interactions involving friends, family members, and relatives within the same community or adjacent communities.

Dr Morag Ferguson, a molecular biologist with IITA and one of the study’s lead researchers, says farmers in Africa traditionally grow many crops and several varieties of each crop on the same plot of land to cope with unforeseen economic or environmental instabilities. They usually set aside part of their harvest to serve as seed for the next cropping season. They also share or trade some of these seeds with friends and relatives. Therefore, when natural disasters strike, many farmers often lose their seeds and are forced to rely on relief, buy from the market, or receive seeds as gifts from friends and relatives.

“We found that the substantial recovery of cowpea genetic diversity two years after the calamities was mainly due to the informal exchange of seeds among farmers that served as a social-based crop diversity safety backup. It is therefore important that seed relief strategies recognize and capitalize on this existing traditional network based on social relations to help restore diversity especially after natural upheavals,” she said.

The study was initiated in 2002, two years after the flood-drought double disasters and carried out in Chokwe and Xai Xai districts in the Limpompo River Valley –areas that were among those severely affected. The findings of the research have been published in the current edition of ‘Disaster’, a publication of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

The research established that nearly 90% of the farmers in the affected areas received cowpea relief seed immediately after the back-to-back calamities. Two years after, only one-fifth of the recipient farmers were still growing the seeds, while more than half sourced their seeds from markets. However, this did little in restoring cowpea diversity in the affected communities as the seeds bought by farmers from the market were mostly uniform, coming from other districts that grew just one or a few select varieties.

On the other hand, about one-third of the affected farmers obtained seeds from friends and relatives living within the same or neighbouring localities to restock their farms – the same people that they have been exchanging seeds with prior to the disasters. This practice was the main reason why cowpea diversity was restored in these areas, the study showed.

“This approach recognizes that farmer seed systems are robust and resilient, and can provide seed even in emergency situations. And this study shows that such an approach will be more effective in restoring diversity faster and more efficiently than a system based on direct distribution only,” she says.

The study was the first of its kind to investigate in detail the effects of disasters on crop diversity and its recovery. It combined agronomic observations (for example looking at the seeds’ colour, size, pattern, and shape) with biotechnology tools to determine the seeds’ genetic makeup.

CGIAR

Maize-legume based farming system study launched

A four year Sustainable Intensification of Maize - Legumes Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) has been launched.

According to the Programme Leader Dr. Mulugetta Mekuria, the project that is funded by the Australian government at the tune of 20 million US dollars in five countries – Kenya , Ethiopia , Tanzania , Mozambique and Malawi is intended to increase food security.


“We intend to introduce improved technologies for sustainable growth in producing maize-legume based farming systems in the four countries where maize growing is popular with the local smallholders,” he noted during the opening of a meeting at a Nairobi.

Mekuria observed that plans are also at advance stage to improving markets and policies, partnerships and capacity building for the smallholder farmers. He said that project is set to benefit 500,000 farmers in the next 10 years and will also help the farmers drop monoculture agriculture.

Mekuria revealed that farmers will be involved fully in research through farmer groups as a way of sustaining the project amongst them.


“Under the project we intend to equip laboratories in the National Research Institutions and also train scientists for their PhD and Masters Programme,” he added.

CMMYT Deputy Director for Research and Partnerships Marianne Banziger said that Africa has the potential to increase maize productivity once the adoption of climate change resilient crops is taken seriously.

She called on the eastern and southern Africa countries to combine available technologies to optimize food production in increasing food production to help eradicate hunger in the region.

The four year project is collaboration between Australian Centre for Agricultural Research, CMMYT, national research institution from the five countries, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (ASERECA) and the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Xinhua

Gene-modified cowpea could generate up to US$1 billion for small farmers

by Busani Bafana

A pest-resistant version of the black-eyed pea, a subspecies of the cowpea, is on track for commercial introduction, promising higher yields and claimed savings of up to US$1 billion of a crop that has found new popularity among African smallholders.

The cowpea, actually a bean, is rich in protein and is an important crop for both tackling malnutrition and adapting to climate change as it tolerates hot, dry conditions.

But infestation by the Maruca vitrata pod borer has cut the value of crops by up to US$300 million for smallholders in Africa, who produce nearly 5.2 million tonnes of the bean. The continent currently accounts for about 70 per cent of global production.

Now, scientists at the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, in collaboration with other institutes including the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, Kenya, have engineered an insect-resistant Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cowpea that they say could be on shelves in six years.

The cowpea — an ancient African crop — has been making a comeback in recent years, with increased yields seen across Africa, delegates heard this week (27 September–1 October) at the 5th World Cowpea Conference in Dakar, Senegal.

'The cowpea is emerging as one of the most important food legumes because of its early maturity and its fit as a niche crop in multiple cropping systems,' said B. B. Singh, an international cowpea breeder and visiting scientist at Texas A&M University in the United States.

He noted that there has already been a six-fold increase in world cowpea production in the last few decades, a 'quiet revolution that is greater in magnitude than that of cereals and all other pulses'.

Christian Fatokun, a cowpea breeder at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria, said that, as the crop is grown on a small scale by ill-resourced farmers, no commercial seed company will service this sector. And, because the cowpea is self-pollinating, companies also have little incentive to supply seeds.

The Bt cowpea will raise the status of the bean, claimed its developers. It could also generate up to US$1 billion by 2020 for farmers.

'Up until now, nobody in the scientific world was able to introduce resistance to this insect into cowpea,' said Mohammad Faguji Ishiyaku, principal investigator of the Bt cowpea project and a researcher at the IAR.

'Our research will mean increased income by using less insecticide and increased productivity for areas growing cowpeas. Farmers will also have reduced exposure to harmful chemicals.'

IITA agricultural economist, Ousmane Coulibaly, said surveys on cowpea in Nigeria, Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso have found that farmers are using a lot of expensive and sometimes harmful pesticides. In Nigeria — the largest producer and consumer of cowpea in Africa — net gains from not using pesticides could be about $500 million, he said.

 SciDevNet

The potential of cowpea for Africa's food security

by George Fominyen

With concern growing that climate change will lead to shortages in classic food staples such as maize and rice, could the black-eyed pea be the crop of the future?

Researchers have identified the pea, grown in semi-arid areas, as one of the so-called "climate ready crops" which could tackle Africa's malnutrition and food security problems. The crop produces its own nitrogen so farmers do not need to apply fertilizers, seen as an expensive luxury by most farmers in Africa who tend to be poor smallholders. The nitrogen remains in the soil even after the crop is harvested, making it valuable to places with nutrient-poor soils such as West Africa's semi-arid Sahel region that runs south of the Sahara where over 10 million people have been facing food shortages for nearly a year now.

"Cowpea (black-eyed pea) is drought-tolerant, can survive shifting weather patterns, especially as there are varieties that can produce yields within 60 days and without requiring abundant rainfall," said Christian Fatokun, a black-eyed pea breeder at the Nigeria-based International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

However, the black-eyed pea is usually attacked by pests and weeds during every stage of its life cycle and the dried crop is often attacked by weevils which generally means farmers in sub-Saharan Africa obtain low yields and incur grain losses, Fatokun added.

Scientists meeting in Dakar this week for the fifth world cowpea research conference have been discussing new and innovative approaches of dealing with these pests in order to cut losses and ensure improved production.

"Black-eyed peas have been largely neglected despite their multiple benefits and the fact that developing new, high-yield varieties could boost farm incomes by as much as 50 percent while improving household nutrition," said Peter Hartmann, the director general of IITA which is one of the organisers of the conference. "Today we see scientists racing against time to rescue and conserve cowpea varieties that can help farmers deal with pests and diseases and adapt to changing environments," he added in a statement.

Although Africa produces 5.2 million of the more than 5.4 million tonnes of dried black-eyed peas produced worldwide, experts say the continent is not producing enough to cover its food security needs. "We (Africans) mainly grow food like cowpeas for subsistence and you cannot speak of food security if we don't produce excesses which can be sold or converted to flour and other forms for consumption by more people," Fatokun said.

The protein-rich crop (grains contain 25 percent protein) consumed traditionally by millions of West Africans has recently witnessed a boom as entrepreneurs realise it is a cheaper raw material for cereal-based meals amid the rising cost of favoured grains -- wheat, maize and rice.

"Niebe (black-eyed pea) is the cereal of the future," said Aissatou Diagne Deme, a local entrepreneur, whose company employs 52 workers to supply supermarkets and households with black-eyed pea flour in Dakar. "It is not only nutritive, its transformation allows us to make a living and to provide employment," she added as dust rose from grains of black-eyed peas being sieved at her production site.

Senegal's institute of food technology (ITA) which has been developing bread mixtures using black-eyed peas will launch a pilot school feeding project to supply bread made of black-eyed peas, wheat flour and peanut butter to schools in October.

"The main advantage is its high content in protein but it is also cheaper for the government-run programme ... the bread we make only costs 50 CFA (10 U.S. cents)whereas that produced in bakeries using only wheat cost about 70 CFA (15 U.S. cents)," Ababacar Ndoye, ITA's director-general, said.

Experts say most of these initiatives only exist on a small scale or in pilot form because not enough of the crop is produced. They say it is up to African governments to modernise the agricultural sector to boost local food production which would make food affordable and prevent regular food shortages.

Reuters
   

Senegal experiments with cowpea as wheat substitute in bread-baking

by Artis Henderson

At a pilot bakery inside the Food Technology Institute in Dakar, Senegal's capital, cooks in white smocks tried to make bread out of a novel ingredient — peas.

Wheat is still a crucial ingredient in bread because of its gluten content, necessary for the dough to rise. But after months of testing, the experimental bakers have been able to reduce the wheat used in their baguettes and dinner rolls to 85 percent.

They supplant the remaining 15 percent with flour made from black-eyed peas, a crop that has been grown locally for centuries and which is far cheaper than wheat because it is not imported.

Still hot from the oven, the dinner rolls the cooks baked on a recent morning sell for 50 West African francs (around $0.10 cents) — about 40 percent cheaper than its all-wheat equivalent. The taste is roughly the same.

To address the spiraling cost of food which elsewhere in Africa has degenerated into violent riots, Senegal is looking to a crop from its past. The black-eyed pea — known also as the cowpea — has the potential to feed millions and to act as a substitute for wheat which is not grown here or in many countries in the region, according to participants at the Fifth World Cowpea Research Conference in Dakar this week.

"Whatever is imported is always going to be more expensive," said Ababacar Ndoye, the director of the state-funded food lab where the pea-infused bread is being tested. "So by replacing a part of our bread with the black-eyed pea, we can bring down the price of bread."

The nutritious legume first came to America from Africa in slave ships. The peas grew well in the hot, humid climate of the southern United States. They have since become a staple of American cuisine in the deep south.

While black-eyed peas were thriving in the U.S., the same crop was neglected in Africa. Members of colonial regimes imported rice and wheat to the continent, and the foreign crops replaced the native legumes. Research groups have now labeled black-eyed peas as an underutilized crop, one that has the potential to seriously impact the food insecurity issue in Africa, including in this nation of 13.7 million if cultivated to its full potential.

Recent months have seen riots in Mozambique over the rising cost of bread, and in Dakar the hike in the price of wheat caused bakers to go on strike.

Ndoye says that in recent months, a 110 pound (50 kilogram) sac of wheat has spiked from 16,000 francs (around $32) to over 20,000 ($40), highlighting the volatility of a cereal that has become far too ingrained in the local diet. Many Senegalese families begin the day with a glass of coffee or tea and a baguette. They end the day with a plate of thieboudiene, a local dish consisting of a fish or meat over a large serving of rice.

The purpose of the World Cowpea Research Conference is to try to find more uses for black-eyed peas. Reporters were invited Friday to a sample an entire meal cooked from the peas, including an 'exotic salad' sprinkled with the almond-colored peas, chicken served with a red, pea-based sauce and a desert made from pea flour. The food lab is already working to introduce the composite bread in local bakeries throughout the country.

In her food processing operation in Dakar, Aissatou Diagne Deme employs 52 people to transform dried black-eyed peas into flour. Deme sells 1,700 pounds of black-eyed pea flour to local markets around Senegal's capital every month and says that she is not able to meet local demand.

"The demand for black-eyed peas is increasing," Deme said. "It's the crop of the future."

AFP

   

New cowpea varieties released

Two new cowpea varieties to raise production and improve farmers’ incomes have been developed by research institutions based in Nigeria. The varieties come just when the country’s researchers are finalizing their plans to attend the Fifth World Cowpea Research Conference to be held from 27 September to 1 October 2010 in Dakar, Senegal, to discuss the state of the art in cowpea research.

The varieties—IT89KD-288 and IT89KD-391—were developed by scientists working at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, in collaboration with the Institute for Agricultural Research of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; the University of Maiduguri, Borno; and the Agricultural Development Programs of Borno, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina States.

Both varieties have proven superiority over the current improved lines being cultivated and aim to overcome the challenges faced by cowpea farmers in the country. For instance, IT89KD-288 (now SAMPEA-11) is a dual-purpose cowpea variety with large white seeds and a rough seed coat. It has combined resistance to major diseases including septoria leaf spot, scab, and bacterial blight, as well as to nematodes, and tolerance to Nigeria’s strain of Striga gesnerioides (a parasitic weed that severely lowers yield).

“It also has a yield advantage of at least 80% over the local varieties,” says Dr Alpha Kamara, IITA’s Agronomist, who is leading efforts to rapidly disseminate the varieties to farmers.

The nematode-resistant variety is an equally good candidate for sowing in cereals or as a relay crop with maize in the moist and dry savanna zones, as well as for high grain production in the dry season.

Scientists recommend that the variety be planted in mid July in the Sudan savanna, early to mid-August in the northern Guinea savanna, and by the end of August in the southern Guinea savanna. However, where there is certainty of rains up till the end of October, IT89KD-288 can be planted in September.

IT89KD-391 (now SAMPEA-12) is also a dual-purpose cowpea variety but it has medium-to-large brown seeds with a rough seed coat. These are preferred seed characteristics for commercial production in northeast Nigeria.

According to Dr Hakeem Ajeigbe, IITA Extension/Dissemination Specialist, “IT89KD-391 is a welcome improvement over SAMPEA 7, Ife brown, IT90K-76, and IT90K-82-2 which are the main improved brown-seeded varieties available. It has been tested extensively in this area and is well accepted by the farmers. The variety performs well as a sole crop and an intercrop. It could also be planted as a relay crop with maize in the Guinea savannas.” 

Several on-station and on-farm trials have shown that IT89KD-391 (SAMPEA 12) produces double the yields of local cultivars.

In 2008, Nigeria released a Striga-resistant improved cowpea variety (IT97K-499-35). Currently, efforts are being made through the project on legumes funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make available seeds of these improved varieties by setting up community-based seed production schemes.

IITA

Genetic map for cowpea accelerates development of new varieties

Cowpea, a protein-rich legume crop, is immensely important in many parts of the world, particularly drought-prone regions of Africa and Asia, where it plays a central role in the diet and economy of hundreds of millions of people.

Cowpea provides food that complements starchy staple crops such as corn, cassava, sorghum and millets to offer a well-rounded diet, much as beans and other grain legumes complement maize- and rice-based diets in Latin America and other places. Due to its hardy nature, cowpea plays a key role in sustaining food security for both people and their livestock.

But breeding new cowpea varieties with desirable traits, such as disease resistance, pest resistance and drought tolerance, is a time-consuming and laborious process that can take a decade from concept to release.

A challenge facing cowpea breeders, therefore, is how to accelerate the production of new and improved cowpea varieties in order to both meet the needs of a growing world population and provide the productivity gains needed by farmers to improve their economic standing.

Now a team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside has responded to this challenge by developing a high-density "consensus genetic map" of cowpea that accelerates conventional breeding severalfold and facilitates the production of new varieties of not only cowpea but also other legumes, particularly soybean and common bean (near relatives of cowpea).

To build the map, the scientists first modified and then applied advanced genetic tools developed from human genome investigations that only recently have been applied to a few major crop plants.

"The consensus map is a consolidation of six individual genetic maps of cowpea, and is far more representative of the cowpea genome than earlier maps," said team leader, Timothy Close, a professor of genetics in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences. "We now have a reliable, powerful tool that marks a paradigm shift in crop-breeding technology."

Study results appear Oct. 13 in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The consensus genetic map of cowpea is a dense and detailed roadmap of its genome (a genome is a complete genetic blueprint). The map has approximately 1000 molecular markers throughout the genome. The markers, which are like signposts directing a motorist to a destination, are associated with traits desired for breeding and used to more deliberately design and assemble new superior varieties.

"All you need is a marker near a gene of interest," explained team member Philip Roberts, a professor in the Department of Nematology, who currently leads UCR's Bean/Cowpea and Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support Program — a highly successful project, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, that has assisted African institutes in developing improved cowpea varieties. "With a marker-based map we can look into any trait desired in cowpea. The resolution of the map is such that we can accurately locate the position of genes that are contributing in a major way to various traits we'd like to see built into new cowpea varieties."

Close explained that cowpea is closely related to soybean at the genome level, allowing for the kind of cross referencing that would have been unfeasible without the consensus genetic map.

"A good number of genes are conserved across species," he said. "By looking at a marker on a cowpea chromosome, we can cross reference it to information on, say, the soybean genome, based on the DNA sequences of the marker. This facilitates knowledge transfer between these species, so advances made in cowpea can be translated into valuable information for soybean, and vice versa. The result is a tremendous acceleration in marker development to support the breeding process."

Cowpea, which originated in Africa, also is commonly referred to as southern pea, blackeye pea, crowder pea, lubia, niebe, coupe or frijole. In the United States, cowpea is popular in the south, where it is known as black-eyed peas and other names. California primarily grows the blackeyed cowpea type.

"It took us nearly ten years to breed 'California Blackeye No. 50,' our newest blackeye cowpea variety for California growers, using conventional breeding methods," said Jeff Ehlers, a specialist in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences with more than 20 years of experience conducting genetic research on cowpea in California and Africa. "With the new technologies and map information now at hand this could have been done in half this time. The new consensus map will greatly expand our ability to locate valuable genes and incorporate them into new varieties."

UCR is host to a collection of more than 5,000 cowpea varieties from around the world. These genetically diverse varieties offer a treasure-trove of genes of potential value to breeders seeking to build better cowpea varieties.

UCR researchers have been providing assistance to African scientists for several decades. In the late 1970s, Anthony Hall, a professor emeritus of crop physiology in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, pioneered research on cowpea at UCR. His research on cowpea physiology contributed to a deeper understanding of the legume's adaptation to drought, heat and poor soils, and his efforts with several African breeders helped develop highly successful varieties in Senegal, Sudan and Ghana. He also led the effort to establish a genetic map for cowpea, published in 1997.

Close, Roberts and Ehlers were joined in the research by UCR's Wellington Muchero, the first author of the research paper, and Ndeye Diop, both of whom are postdoctoral researchers and hail from Africa, as well as Prasanna Bhat, Raymond Fenton, Steve Wanamaker, and Marti Pottorff. Other coauthors on the research paper are Sarah Hearne and Christian Fatokun of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria, and Ndiaga Cisse of the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research.

The two-year research effort was funded by the Generation Challenge Program (GCP) through a grant to the GCP from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and from the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Collaborative Research Support Program.

Science Daily

IITA promotes new cowpea storage method

by Salma Ahmad Kano

Cowpeas are of vital importance to the diets and livelihood of millions of people in West and Central Africa. But the crop is notoriously difficult to store - beetles and other pests can destroy an entire granary full of cowpeas within 12 months.

Rural families in Nigeria grow cowpeas for sale, for their own consumption and feed animals on the husk of the bean. The black-eyed beans are known to contribute to soil fertility by providing ground cover and useful plant residues, fixing nitrogen, and suppressing weeds.

Cowpeas are an important staple food in northern Nigeria and beyond. Across the country the beans are made into a deep-fried dumpling (known in Hausa as kosai', in Yoruba as akara). Another favourite is a pudding known as alala.

Cowpeas provide an inexpensive source of protein for both rural poor and urban consumers. Research by Ricardo Bressani in 1985 revealed that the grain contains about 25 percent protein and 64 percent carbohydrate and so it has a tremendous potential to contribute to the alleviation of malnutrition among resource-poor farmers.

A superb plant then.

Except that about twenty people were hospitalised and another ten died in just the month of September in just the northern Nigerian state of Kano, after eating beans contaminated by farmers in an attempt to protect them from pests in storage.

"We have a lot of cases of food poisoning due to chemical storage, leading to what is commonly called 'killer beans'. Because many farmers don’t have functional storage facilities and do not receive the full value of their cowpea harvest," said Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye, a representative of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. The IITA has developed a new, safe method of storage.

It's so difficult to protect cowpeas from beetles and other pests, that farmers typically sell their harvest as early as possible to offload the risk; but this means they get a low price as they sell at harvest time, when the market is flooded.

Ahmed Abubakar, a farmer at Gabasawa village about 130 kilometres from the city of Kano who has been growing cowpeas for years said he has been storing his beans using insecticides which he admitted were poisonous when misused.

He said officials from the Kano State Agriculture and Rural Development Agency had on many occasions informed him and other farmers in the area that the pesticides and insectides were harmful if used for food storage, but there was no alternative method to store the product. He said that he sometimes stored the harvest in plastic bags, but that this failed to protect it.

The Institute of International Tropical Agriculture (IITA), has recently developed a new technology for storing cowpeas without chemicals.

Over the last two decades, the IITA has made significant advances in improving the productivity of cowpea in sub-Saharan Africa, developing a number of varieties with different maturity periods, ability to outcompete weeds, increased resistance to diseases and pests and other desirable agronomic traits.

But storage is a problem that threatens to erase any gains in productivity. Abubakar revealed that every year, he loses more than 1000 kg of his crop, which he usually seals off in 50 kilogramme capacity bags.

Dr Abdoulaye says his institute will be rolling out a new method, known as the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS), in Nigeria during the final quarter of 2009. The aim is to see at least half of all cowpeas stored using the new method across West and Central Africa by 2011.

PICS is a straightforward idea: seal the bags up in hermetically-sealed plastic that does not allow air in, limiting the survival of insects that damage cowpeas. "This simply eliminates the need to use any chemicals for storage," says Abdoulaye.

Each PICS bag, which will be available from licensed vendors, consists of two high-density polyethylene plastic bags, and an outer sack of nylon that protects them. Abdoulaye explains that any insects sealed in with the beans will quickly use up all the air in the sealed bag and then it can be stored safely for eight to 12 months without being damaged by insects.

Training on the use of the new technology will focus on women farmers, and a special demonstration would be conducted in villages just for the benefit of the women farmers, who take the lead in the most crucial phases of processing and preparing cowpeas, as well as storage.

It is expected that about 40 women technicians trained by the Institute will continue to work with women farmers across the 12 northern states of Nigeria to increase female farmers' access to the technology.

Abdoulaye also said the project was developing a distribution network of PICS sacks in Nigeria, saying distribution will provide business opportunities to sack manufacturers, distributors and vendors.

The IITA official therefore revealed that the PICS project and its partners have identified with the efforts of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control toward helping Nigerian consumers in getting safe cowpeas to eat.

Abdoulaye finally disclosed that to protect the users from getting the fake product, the institute only gave one accredited vendor the technology for production and sale, advising that farmers must obtain from the vendors to be sure of getting authentic and effective bags.

IPS

Gene developed through conventional breeding to improve cowpea aphid resistance

Disease and particularly aphids, which can wreck a crop within a few a days, are especially bad luck for the cowpea or black-eyed pea, according to scientists. Several new lines of cowpeas with genes that are aphid-resistant and less susceptible to disease are currently being tested by researchers with Texas AgriLife and other Texas A&M System entities.

"The cowpea has been an important and popular food crop throughout the southern U.S.," said Dr. B.B. Singh, a visiting professor in the soil and crop sciences department at Texas A&M. "It's commonly known as the southern pea, field pea, crowder pea, black-eyed pea, purple-hull pea and pinkeye pea widely grown in the southern states."

The researchers' discoveries could yield big rewards. An international food crop, the cowpea was most popular in the southern U.S. from the 1930s through '70s, and East Texas remains a large U.S. cowpea-producing region.

And during times of drought, the cowpea can be a viable alternative forage crop for livestock producers, due to its ability to fix nitrogen, tolerate drought and provide high-quality fodder, Singh said. It is a high-quality forage for cattle producers, with a protein content as high as 28 percent in seeds and 17 percent to 20 percent in the fodder after harvesting the seeds.

However, the aphid is currently the biggest threat to cowpea producers, Singh said.

"(Aphids) like dry weather," explained Singh, who has spent his entire career studying the cowpea. "Immediately after infestation, they start sucking the juice (sap) from cowpea leaves, stem, flowers and pods of the plants reducing their growth and development and causing severe reduction in yield. They also spread viruses. Aphids can ruin a crop within a few days."

Singh, came to the department as a visiting professor following his retirement two years ago from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, considered the epicenter of cowpea research.

At Texas A&M, Singh is working with colleagues Dr. J. Creighton Miller, D.C. Sheuring and Dr. Bill Payne using field trials in College Station to find a solution to the aphid problem.

Singh has brought more than 35 lines of cowpeas with drought and aphid tolerance, as well as resistance to other diseases and higher yield potential, to College Station. His work there has involved using conventional breeding methods to cross those lines with six Texas and California varieties in greenhouse and field settings.

"Many of the IITA lines are resistant to aphid, bacterial blight, powdery mildew and drought, whereas most of the U.S. lines are susceptible," Singh said. "A number of crosses were made to transfer the resistance to aphids and drought from the IITA lines to the U.S. lines."

In mid July, an aphid infestation hit the College Station trials, putting the new varieties to the test.

"It's been fairly severe, permitting selection of resistant plants from the F2 and F3 populations," he said. "Due to drought and aphids this crop season, all of the susceptible cowpea varieties and segregating plants have been completely damaged, showing 80 percent to 100 percent yield loss, while the aphid resistant varieties and segregating plants are completely healthy with normal yield. The resistance is simply inherited, very effective and highly stable across environments."

From the segregating populations, the resistant plants with diverse maturity dates, plant type, growth habits and seed types have been selected to meet the need for grain type, fodder-type and pasture-type cowpea varieties, he said.

"These are being advanced to achieve uniformity and multi-location testing for stability of resistance and yield potential," Singh added. The new aphid-resistant, high-yielding varieties could be available to farmers as early as 2011, Singh said.

"The cowpea has worldwide importance as a crop for both human and animal nutrition," said Payne of Texas AgriLife Research, assistant director for research at the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. "Introducing improved disease- and drought-resistant and higher-yield varieties could not only have tremendous potential for Texas and U.S. agriculture, it could help provide poor and developing countries with an important alternative source of nutrition."

According to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Africa, the cowpea is an important food crop in many African, Asian and South American countries, especially as an alternative source of protein where people cannot afford meat and fish. The crop typically is grown by subsistence farmers with limited agricultural resources, who use it to feed livestock or sell for additional income.

The international Food and Agriculture Organization estimates more than 7.5 million tons of cowpeas are produced annually worldwide, with sub-Saharan Africa responsible for about 70 percent of that amount.

"We are already involved in international research projects in Africa relating to cowpeas," Payne noted. "It's exciting to think where these new activities in College Station and the research already under way in Africa may lead."

Science Daily

Project in Niger seeks to improve cowpea cultivation methods

by Isiyaku Ahmed

A project is underway in Niger to increase cowpea production by improving farming techniques. The effort is called the Gatsby Crop-Livestock Project, named after the London-based organization that is providing funding for the effort.

Among the implementers of the project is Niger's National Institute of Agronomic Research, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, or IITA, and the US Peace Corps.

Cowpea farming in Niger is being hindered by a lack of arable land, poor crop varieties and outdated farming methods. About 80 percent of Niger's people are subsistence farmers and herders who use fallow farming techniques to grow cowpea. In this system, the land remains unplanted for a period of time so nutrients needed for healthy plants can regenerate in the soil. The system does not allow for the rapid growth of crops. Farmers also plant cowpea among crops with leaves that provide too much shade and thus impede its growth.
The older cowpea varieties are also susceptible to a parasitic plant called striga, which competes with the food crop for moisture and nutrients.

Dr. Hakeem Ajeigbe is the Gatsby Crop and Livestock project coordinator at IITA in Nigeria. He mentions another challenge faced by farmers: "Fertilizer is not available in the quantity required in Nigeria, Niger or anywhere in Africa. But we need fertilizer, so we are now teaching [farmers] how to use their livestock to generate manure."

But the new project by the IITA and the Ministry of Agriculture is working to turn the situation around. Dr. Hakeem says IITA scientists are introducing better yielding strains of cowpea that take 65 to 70 days to mature – nearly half the time of old varieties. They are also resistant to striga.

He says farmers are taught how to enhance regular commercial fertilizers. The animals eat crop residue for 60 to 70 days and generate manure that will be used to provide nutrients to the soil. The farmer digs a hole about 10 cm from the plant and puts a small amount of manure in it. This method, called spot application, reduces the amount of chemical fertilizers needed.

Hakeem says the IITA livestock project includes improved farming methods,"We have brought a new system, the strip cropping system, whereby the farmers can plant either one or two rows of cereals: four rows of cowpea. This creates a window for cowpea because with these four rows shading is minimized."

Dr. Addam Kiri Saidon is a soil scientist at an institution also involved in the effort, the National Institute of Agronomic Research of Niger (INRAN). He says Peace Corps volunteers from the United States will help train farmers in the regions of Maradi and Zinder in the new farming techniques and application of the new seed varieties. The collaboration is more on the transfer of technology working with the peace corps volunteers. They serve as a link between the project and farmers in the villages.

IITA is also helping with funds, new technologies, and some aspects of research. Niger produces nearly 700,000 tons of cowpea each year, making it the world's second largest producer, after Nigeria. It's the country's main agricultural export. It's also an indispensable part of the family diet, eaten as bean cakes and bean pudding. As West Africa's population grows, so does the demand for improved crops of the well-loved cowpea.

VOA

New cowpea cover crops look promising

Cowpea cover crops, such as the field shown here, are cost effective because they increase soil nitrogen, control weeds, build soil quality and control pests.

By Bob Johnson

Over the last decade a large and growing number of farmers have taken up the practice of growing cover crops--to improve soil quality and reduce erosion and runoff.

But now the value of the "green manure" in legume cover crops is making them even more attractive.

The higher costs of fertilizer have increased interest by conventional growers in legume cover crops, which have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and put it into the soil.

"Sharp increases in synthetic fertilizer prices have helped to fuel interest in planting legume cover crops by non-organic growers," said Jeff Ehlers, University of California, Riverside, grain legume plant breeding specialist.

Ehlers is one of the UC researchers who are working feverishly to find or develop cowpea cover crop varieties that serve multiple uses.

Some of the more useful cowpeas are exceptional at controlling weeds in particular time slots. Others help control nematodes or crop diseases. And there is even hope that a cowpea variety from Africa will produce a strong enough dose of a biofumigant to reduce symphylans, the persistent garden centipede that feeds on the roots of tomatoes, asparagus, leafy vegetables and other crops.

But all of the cowpea cover crops increase the nitrogen and organic matter in the soil.

"Cowpea cover crops are cost effective because they enrich the soil with organic matter and over 100 pounds per acre of nitrogen, and can reduce pest populations such as root-knot nematodes," Ehlers said.

He has been testing a new, improved version of the standard summer season cowpea cover crop.

"The cowpea cultivar most widely used as a cover crop is Iron Clay," Ehlers explained. "Iron Clay produces the abundant amounts of organic matter and nitrogen needed to enrich the soil, resists common forms of root-knot nematode, and grows well in our desert summers with moderate irrigation."

But when Iron Clay is grown in California, the pods open up and seeds cannot be produced.

UC Riverside is releasing a new and improved cowpea cover crop variety, labeled CC 36, that remedies the seed production problem. The new variety also has broader nematode and Fusarium wilt resistance than its predecessor.

CC 36 is intended to provide weed control, and to increase soil fertility for the subsequent cash crop. The seed for this variety must be produced in warmer areas of Southern California. But that means that CC 36 will give a larger biomass yield when it is used as a cover crop in other areas of the state.

UC Cooperative Extension legume specialist Steve Temple is continuing to work with an African cowpea cover crop variety that was very successful for years in tomato rotations in the Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems program in Davis.

"This was used after early harvest tomatoes in the sustainable program," Temple said. He is continuing his farm trials of this cover crop with both dry bean and tomato growers.

The major advantage of this variety is that it puts out a canopy very quickly and continues to produce biomass with little water from August until late November or even early December. This cover crop crowds out weeds and adds nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. It also has resistance to some root-knot nematodes.

This African cowpea was the major cover crop in a mix that prevented weed germination in a tomato rotation all the way through February, according to Temple.

But the most intriguing cowpea cover crop trial could be the attempt to find a variety that produces a natural fumigant in intense enough concentrations to reduce populations of symphylans, a destructive and persistent soil pest. Symphylans are extremely difficult to control because they can hide in small spaces deep in the soil, where it is nearly impossible to reach them with insecticides.

Researchers say that the Mucuna bean could prove to be an important tool in controlling a range of soil pests.

The Mucuna is an African cowpea that has an extremely high content of L-Dopa, a natural biocide.

"There's definitely high amounts of L-Dopa in the seed, and there may be in the root material as well," said Margaret Lloyd, the UC Davis graduate student in plant pathology who is conducting the trial at the Davis test fields.

The Mucuna or velvet bean is native to West Africa, according to Lloyd. But varieties of the Mucuna were commonly used in cotton rotations in the southern United States in the early decades of the 20th century.

People do eat Mucuna in some parts of the world, according to Lloyd. But they are very careful to boil them thoroughly to get rid of the L-Dopa before they eat the beans. And it is highly unlikely that anyone in the U.S. would eat the Mucuna beans, she said.

But the bean could prove to be an important tool in controlling a range of soil pests.

"There's been a good amount of research with Mucuna controlling nematodes," Lloyd said. This cover crop is extremely vigorous and has also been shown to control some weed varieties.

According to Temple varieties of Mucuna have been used successfully in many areas to increase soil nitrogen, control weeds, build soil quality and control pests. The first step in the attempt to learn the possibilities in California is to find out which varieties of Mucuna can be efficiently grown here.

"We're growing them out here to see which will flower and produce seeds," Lloyd said.

Once the more promising varieties have been selected, they will be grown in Southern California locations to learn if seeds can be produced.

California Farm Bureau Federation

Scientists meet in Nigeria to discuss GM cowpea production in Africa

As world leaders met earlier this week in Rome to find solutions to the global food crisis, a number of scientists and other stakeholders also converged on the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to consider the possibility of increasing Bt cowpea production in Africa to feed the continent.

The three-day international conference, organized by the Nairobi-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, attracted participants from Australia, the United States and some African countries.

Speaker after speaker called for effective ways to propagate the message that Bt cowpea, given the necessary attention, could be a major source of food especially protein, to the ever-increasing population of the continent.

Currently, AATF is engaged in a process of developing a new genetically modified cowpea with a Bt gene that would enable smallholder farmers in Africa to have access to high quality seed and socially acceptable cowpea varieties with increased resistance to maruca pod borer, an insect that troubles the produce.

In a presentation on her behalf, Nigeria’s Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Chief (Mrs.) Grace Ekpiwhre, assured the participants that the government of Nigeria, the largest producer and consumer of cowpea, supported every progress being made to develop Bt cowpea.

“For many years, plant breeders have used conventional plant breeding methods to improve crops, and to help speed up natural selection and evolution by combining different genes for crop improvement but all these have not been yielding desirable results. A major advantage of modern biotechnology is that it often generates strategies for genetic improvement that can be applied to many different crops, and beneficial organisms which this project employs.”

Nigeria and Niger, together, produce about 86 percent of the world’s cowpea, which is considered the most important food grain legume in the dry savannah of tropical Africa where it is grown on more than 12.5 million hectares of land.

“Over 200 million people consume the crop, thus an improvement in cowpea productivity in Africa will ensure quality and increased food yield, improved health for all, eradication of malnutrition in the African child and assurance of prosperity of the rural sector,” said the minister.

For his part, Professor Shehu Ado, Director of IAR, said the proper organization of the conference even indicated that “Africans, given the political backing by their governments, can engineer effective solutions to problems on the continent.” He said the importance of cowpea to all, especially the poor, earned it the Hausa nickname “naman talaka” which literally means “meat for the poor.”

The Director of the Tamale-based Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, Professor A.B. Salifu, was happy to state that Ghana now had a legislative instrument to enable scientists to conduct field trials on Genetically Modified products in agriculture.

“As I have had the occasion to remark before, for us in Ghana the argument for deployment of GM products in our agriculture no longer lies with the science; what is key now should be the issue of public perception of the concept, including issues related to consumer awareness.”

Modern Ghana

Tropical Legumes Project seeks to increase yields

A newly-launched cross-continental research and development project seeks to increase legume yields in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The Tropical Legumes Project was officially launched in September 2007 in Rustenburg Kloof, South Africa, and in Arusha, Tanzania, according to a statement by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

The project involves 14 African and Asian national agricultural research programmes in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. 

The project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

"Legumes hold great promise for fighting hunger, increasing income and improving soil fertility," the statement said, adding however that legumes had not received the scientific or funding attention needed to increase crop yields of small holder farmers' in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, enhance their food security and reduce poverty. 

The first of the two-prong approach focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and four legumes - beans, cowpeas, groundnut and chickpeas. 

It will be led by the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in collaboration with partners from national research programmes, universities and CGIAR centres. 

The second approach prong focuses on large-scale breeding, seed multiplication and distribution primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, thus paving the way for the research results from the first approach to translate into breeding materials for the ultimate benefit of resource-poor farmers. 

"These projects will partner with the Programme for African Seed Systems, a major initiative within the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, to ensure African farmers have access to seed of improved legume varieties. 

"Legumes are critically important as a source of income and nutrition for low-income farm families. However, there has not been enough investment in this area in the past," the statement quoted Dr. Rajiv Shah, Director of Agricultural Development, Global Development Programme at the Gates Foundation, as saying., "We hope this project – by working across the value chain and linking to other investments like AGRA – will help deliver meaningful benefits to farmers' fields and families. We also hope it will encourage others to increase their investments in this type of critical, farmer-oriented agricultural research," he added.

Afriquenligne

ICARDA, Turkish scientists develop drought-tolerant chick pea variety

A new chickpea variety, Gokce, developed by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in collaboration with Turkish national scientists, has withstood severe drought in Turkey and produced an impressive yield in adverse weather conditions.

Gokce is not only drought tolerant but also has moderate tolerance to Ascochyta blight, a disease that devastates chickpea. In most areas where wheat, barley, and other crops have failed, Gokce's yield is high.

"Work on developing this variety began in 1984/85 as part of an international yield trial," says Dr R. S. Malhotra, senior chickpea breeder at ICARDA. "Gokce was released for field trials in Turkey in 1991." Subsequently, in 1992 and 1993, it was tested in regional yield trials at five contrasting locations. It was released for commercial production in 1997.

ICARDA, based in Aleppo, Syria, is a non-profit international agricultural research center in a worldwide consortium of 15 centers, supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Based on the success of the field trials, the Exporters' Union Seed and Research Company (ITAS), a non-profit organization set up by agricultural exporters of Turkey, introduced Gokce into the country in 1997. ITAS planted 1400 kg of foundation seed in 1998. The seed was then distributed to growers in 2000. Since then, 100-150 tons of certified seed has been provided to farmers for cultivation.

As Gokce cultivation expanded, the average yield of chickpea increased noticeably, from 861 kg per hectare in 2000 to 1071 kg per hectare in 2006. Chickpea is now grown in some 600,000 hectares in Turkey. This year Gokce has been planted in almost 85 % of the chickpea production area.

Turkey is one of the largest exporters of kabuli chickpea in the world and Turkish farmers have quickly adopted Gokce because of its large seed size and tolerance to drought and Ascochyta blight.

IRCADA

IITA trains Nigerian farmers on improved cowpea care methods

In northern Nigeria, farmers are getting help with new farming and preservation techniques for the cowpea. Nigeria is the world’s largest grower and consumer of the crop.

At the beginning of another farming season, scores of farmers gather at a conference hall belonging to the Kano branch of the Institute for International and Tropical Agriculture (IITA), whose main branch is in the southern city of Ibadan.

They are there for a two-day workshop for farmers, extension agents and others interested in improving food production. Some have come to buy high-breed cowpea seedlings from the IITA, while others want the most effective pesticides. Besides the IITA, representatives from two other organizations are here, including USAID, which has a special program called Maximizing Agricultural Revenue for Key Targets Sites. There are also 60 extension agents and representatives working with the Kano State Agricultural Development Authority, or KNARDA.

Crop and livestock specialist Dr. Hakeem Ajeigbe coordinated the pre-season training. He says the workshop aims to equip the extension agents and farmers with the latest tools for improving yields of cowpea.

One element of training is improved methods of cultivation, including strip cropping. This means the repetitive planting of two rows of cereals followed by four rows of cowpeas. The system puts more space between the legumes and cereals, a practice that helps reduce erosion on hills and helps increase yields. In the traditional method, over a meter of space is left between the two crops.

Some of the latest skills acquired by the farmers and extension agents include what is called "triple bagging" for preserving the grain. To triple bag the produce, you need three 50 kilogram plastic bags. The cowpeas are placed in the first one, which is put inside the other two. Insects are not likely to penetrate the three bags. The system allows cowpeas to be stored for five months without using preservatives.

Workshop participants also learn how to kill the insects that infect cowpeas before storage. The sun’s energy will kill the insects when the cowpeas are laid on a hot black plastic sheet. Afterwards, the produce is moved into airtight tins. It’s a cheap, easy and non-toxic way to preserve the crop, and it doesn’t change the physical shape or nutritive value of the cowpea.

The training was also aimed at improving food production and revenue generation. Ajeigbe says: “These days everybody is talking about cooperatives, so we bring experts in cooperative formation to train these extension agents and also go and train farmers on how to form viable cooperative farmers' associations.” He says forming cooperatives will make it easier for farmers to buy fertilizers, pesticides and farm tools or machines. It will also make it easier as a group to get loans from banks and financial institutions.

Isa Malami is the assistant director of the Agricultural Credit and Marketing at the Kano State Agricultural Development Authority. He says the major challenge facing farmers in the rural areas is illiteracy. “The issue of illiteracy has been a problem to our farmers; most of this training has to be translated into the local language to be effective, so I will suggest that if IITA or any other organization has to conduct anything on capacity building they should translate some of the training documents into the local language.”

In Nigeria, cowpeas are often eaten as a porridge or pudding. It can also be combined with cooked rice cereal or prepared as cowpea cake, made from mashed and fried seed popularly known as “Kwose.” Cowpeas are consumed another way - as a fast food called "Akara," sold along Nigerian roadsides. It is also used as fodder in some parts of Nigeria.

Millions of farmers in Africa cultivate cowpeas, and some 200 million Africans consume them. Cowpea grain is inexpensive and nutritious and serves as a cheap form of protein. The IITA said an estimated 3.3 million tons of cowpea grain were produced in 2000.

Nigeria is both the largest producer and the largest consumer of cowpeas. Dawanau market in Kano is the largest cowpea market in the world.

VOA News

Two new cowpea varieties ready for release in Ghana

The Crop Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana has proposed that two varieties of cowpea developed by the institute be released for public use.

The development of the new varieties is to address the malnutrition problem among lactating mothers and children in the country. Seven out of every 10 pregnant women suffer from anaemia resulting from iron deficiency. The two varieties proposed were based on the results of on-station and on-farm evaluation, chemical composition and sensory evaluation done by the institute.

The two varieties are IT87D-611-3 with the name "Nhyira", meaning blessing in Akan and IT87D-2075 with the name "Tona", meaning profit in Dagarti.

Dr. Hans Adu-Dapaah, a plant breeder and chief research scientist of the Institute, explained that Nhyira was early maturing (65-68 days), high yielding (2.3tonnes/hectare), moderately resistant to virus, resistant to Anthracnose and Cercospora leaf spot; high in iron, energy, phosphorus and protein contents; and tolerant to leaf hoppers and drought. Its leaves are rich in protein and minerals; it has high biomass and suppresses weeds.

The Tona variety has high energy, phosphorus and iron; is resistant to Cercospora leaf spot, viruses and to leaf hoppers, and is medium maturing (71-80 days) and drought tolerant.

Adu-Dapaahexplained that apart from providing cash income for the farmers, cowpea also supplied the bulk of plant protein in the diets of most people in West Africa. "Cowpea leaves, green pods, green peas and dry seeds are all consumed as human food while the fresh and dry haulms provide fodder for livestock. Major constraints to cowpea include insect pest (thrips, pod sucking bugs and storage weevils), fungal, bacterial and viral diseases, Striga gesnerioides and drought."

Dr. Adu-Dapaah said cowpea breeding at CRI focused on the development of varieties that were early to medium maturing, resistant to insect pests, diseases, striga gesnerioides and drought.

He called on Ghanaians to patronise the two cowpea varieties for their nutritional needs.

My Joy

Gates Foundation funds improved cowpea storage method in central/west Africa

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $11.4 million to Purdue University (Illinois, USA) Agriculture to help people in 10 African nations safely store cowpeas, an important food and cash crop, and increase their household income on average about $150 per year. With a one-time cost estimated at a little more than $3 per household, farmers in West and Central Africa will learn how to better protect the crop.

Cowpeas are marketed by an estimated 3.4 million households in those countries. Even though yields are low, the legume is one of the few grain crops that can be profitably exported by farmers in this dry, resource-poor part of Africa. Unfortunately, a pest called the cowpea weevil can consume nearly all the cowpeas stored on farms.

"Because of the storage problems, farmers are often forced to sell their cowpeas at harvest, when prices are at their lowest levels," said Joan Fulton, agricultural economist and project director. "If we teach them how to store the cowpeas properly, they can take advantage of higher prices later in the year."

Proven effective in pilot projects, the Purdue-developed hermetic storage method involves triple bagging the cowpeas in plastic and sealing them tight. It's simple and not a new idea, but most producers in the region do not know about it or have not used the method properly. Not only is the process low-cost - basically the cost of the plastic bags - it's also safer than current practices of either no protection or treating cowpeas with insecticides. "The chemicals add to the expense of storage and create health and environmental hazards," Fulton said.

Purdue will work with partners in Africa to recruit and train technicians who will travel from village to village to educate the mostly illiterate population by demonstrating the proper method for cowpea storage. In addition, the Purdue team will work with manufacturers and suppliers in the region to ensure that appropriate plastic bags are available.

"Through a simple, low-cost and environmentally-friendly technology, Purdue will work with African organizations and program managers to reach more than 3 million households with information and tools to prevent post-harvest losses, a key lever for small farmers to gain access to agricultural markets," said Dr. Rajiv Shah, director of Agricultural Development for the Gates Foundation.

Purdue entomologist and team member Larry Murdock began this work with cowpeas more than 20 years ago when, by chance, he figured out why the storage method works. A colleague experimenting with storing cowpeas in two plastic bags used a chemical in one to kill the weevils and left the other untreated as a control. "He thought that his experiment failed because there was no weevil damage in either bag," Murdock said. "I thought that interesting and started to investigate why that was so." It turns out that the pests become inactive in airtight plastic bags because they deplete the oxygen. As a result, they don't feed and can't reproduce, meaning the population doesn't grow and little or no damage occurs.

"While stored cowpeas may only contain a few insects to begin with, each female can produce 40 or more offspring about every month," Murdock said. "If they have air and are able to reproduce, within a few months you have thousands of weevils and nothing left of your crop."

Plastic bags currently used for storage in the region are often vented or thin and prone to puncture, making them ineffective.

Jess Lowenberg-Deboer, director of International Programs in Agriculture, said the project goal is that within five years 50 percent of the cowpeas stored on farms in the region will be kept in triple-layer plastic bags.

The project will combine some of the oldest teaching methods with the latest communication technology. In addition to village demonstrations, the team may try text messages and videos sent to cell phones. Purdue entomologist Barry Pittendrigh, also part of the team, said cell phones are common, even in areas where residents don't have television. "Cell phone use in Africa is rapidly expanding and may be a good way to reach remote areas," he said. "It's free to receive a cell phone message in most West African countries, so using cell phones will not impose an additional cost on the farmers."

The five-year project will cover the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

Purdue University

Cowpea : possible breakthrough in biological control of pod borer pest

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), otherwise known as black-eyed pea or niebe among other names, is a protein-rich legume crop whose value lies in its ability to fix nitrogen to improve soil fertility in marginal areas. It is also tolerant of drought. Most of the world’s cowpea is grown in West and Central Africa, where many people cannot afford protein foods such as meat, egg and fish. Cowpea with about 27% protein comes in handy as a cheap source of protein.

The yield of the crop has not exceeded 400kg per hectare without the application of insecticides. The poor yield of cowpea is partly attributed to a series of insect pests and diseases, the most devastating being Maruca vitrata which attacks the flowers and bores through the pods.

Synthetic pesticides recommended for use in cowpea can effectively control M. vitrata in the field. However, apart from environmental and human health concerns, there are also socio-economic implications that make the use of chemical pesticides problematic. Among these are the low level of farmers’ education, lack of capital, high prices of pesticides, lack of input market and low access to recommended pesticides.

In West Africa, M. vitrata is also naturally attacked by various indigenous parasitic wasps, but none of them has been found to be efficient in reducing its population. Over the years, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) scientists have attempted to improve the crop through host plant resistance breeding, but their efforts have not yielded appreciable results. Efforts have also been made lately to develop transgenic cowpea but, none of the cowpea producing countries of West and Central Africa yet has regulatory laws on the application of biotechnology tools to improve food crops.

According to Dr. Manuele Tamò, IITA entomologist, “a virus affecting the larvae of M. vitrata has been discovered here in West Africa, but its sub-lethal character has been found to be of little practical interest. However, a much more virulent virus affecting M. vitrata has recently been discovered by World Vegetable Center (AVRDC) scientists in Taiwan. We are currently studying this virus in controlled experiments at IITA-Benin, and preliminary observations indicate a high potential as a biopesticide for the control of M. vitrata”, says Manuele.

Under a special project funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, scientists from both organizations have identified potential candidates that can be deployed from Taiwan to West Africa for the control of this pest. Among the promising beneficial organisms, a small parasitic wasp, Apanteles taragamae, has already been introduced to the IITA-Benin insectaries and experimentally released in Benin and Ghana. The adult females of this parasitoid lay eggs into the body of M. vitrata larvae, which are subsequently killed as the parasitoid develop and emerge to form a cocoon.

It is expected that in the near future when IITA and AVRDC perfect the environment-friendly biological control method to check the menace of M. vitrata, the poor yields of cowpea will be improved to reduce malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa.

source : The Vanguard