Beans farmers in the country are faced with so many challenges, including spraying chemicals about six to 10 times in a planting season due to Pod Borer insect, also called Maruca Vitrata. JULIANA AGBO writes on the newly-approved Bt cowpea which will enhance farmers’ use of less chemicals, bumper harvest and contribute to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
COWPEA is an important staple crop in Sub-Saharan Africa, serving human consumption needs as well as being a good source of quality fodder for livestock.
Cowpea is one of the few food crops in Nigeria not currently processed for use in other products due to attack by pests and diseases.
However, a serious problem for cowpea production is its susceptibility to attack by pests and diseases. Cowpea in Africa is attacked by a range of very damaging insect pests, both on the field and during storage after harvest. A particularly damaging insect is the Pod Borer Maruca that can cause losses as high as 80 per cent of total crop production every year, according to documented evidence.
Farmers often face this challenge with a traditionally low yield factor. As a result, if farmers want to get a good yield, they need to apply multiple insecticide sprays during the course of the production in the fields.
Prior to this, the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in collaboration with various partners under coordination of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) after 10 years of extensive research developed the Bt Cowpea known as Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) cowpea.
The PBR cowpea became an option when farmers and scientists in Africa identified the legume pod-borer as one of the most damaging insect pests limiting cowpea production in the country.
What is Bt cowpea?
The Bt cowpea known as Sampea 20-T, the world’s first GM cowpea variety was developed after nearly a decade of research by Nigerian scientists who introduced a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a natural occurring, soil-borne bacteria long used in organic agriculture into local varieties of cowpea. Their field studies confirmed it confers near complete protection against the pod borer.
The principal investigator in the cowpea project at the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Prof. Mohammad Ishiyaku said the legume does not have any killer gene, adding that farmers can replant the seeds if they wish.
Research also has determined that the Bt protein, which dwells freely in the soil, is harmless in the guts of humans and livestock.
Controversies around Bt cowpea
The new variety has faced a lot of criticisms from the anti-GMO activists who maintain it is harmful to health and the environment.
What worries some critics is that all of Africa’s genetic modification projects are closely tied to Western organisations. Licenses for the patented genes that African scientists use to modify cowpea crops, for example, were provided royalty-free by biotech companies such as Monsanto (since acquired by Bayer), thereby inviting questions about whether their goals are purely humanitarian.
However, poor farmers who have been following these controversies said they are open to new approaches that would minimise pests, allowing them to grow enough cowpea to feed their families with a surplus to sell.
Why the Bt cowpea was approved
Bt cowpea trials have also shown a reduction in the requirement of insecticide sprays from six to eight litres per hectare to two to three litres per hectare.
Following result from confined field trials, the Federal Government of Nigeria, in December last year approved the registration and release of the PBR cowpea variety for commercialisation.
The approval was granted by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, chaired by Mr. Oladosu Awoyemi, at its 28th meeting which was held in Ibadan.
The decision to release the variety means that farmers will have access to the seed that will help them significantly reduce the number of sprays they currently apply to their crop from six to seven times to only two per cropping season and as a result realise better yield in quantity and quality.
It will also contribute to addressing the national cowpea demand deficit of about 500,000 tons and also improve the national productivity average of 350kg/hectare.
The Principal investigator of the project, Prof. Ishiyaku, said the newly released variety does not differ in any way from already existing cowpeas (beans) other than the improvements made.
Ishiyaku said the protein and nutrients content of variety ‘SAMPEA 20-T is the same as that of other conventional varieties; meaning that the Bt gene that was introduced into the variety has no negative influence on the nutritional composition of both grain and folder.
On economic benefit, he said: “The reduction in insecticide use will also benefit farmers economically. Instead of six to eight liters per hectare, farmers will only need two to three liters, saving them roughly N5,400 (about $15 US dollars), per hectare.
He said: “If just 1 million of the 3 million hectares of cowpea in Nigeria are converted to the GMO variety, the country’s farmers would save an estimated N16.2 billion ($45.2 million USD) annually on the cost of insecticides. Additionally, the new seeds are expected to increase yields 20 per cent, which could provide an economic boost of N48 billion ($133.9 million USD) annually.”
He said both the on-station and on-farm trials demonstrated the superiority of SAMPEA 20-T relative to local, recently released cowpea varieties and improved breeding lines tested.
“During the Multi-locational Advanced Yield Trials conducted across Nigeria’s agro-ecologies, researchers found SAMPEA 20-to have high stable grain yield across the test locations. The variety can yield up to 2.9 tons of beans per hectare, and over 3.0 tons of fodder per hectare.
“SAMPEA 20-T is high yielding, early maturing and resistant to Striga and Alectra, which are major constraints to cowpea production in most producing areas in Nigeria and other dry savanna regions,” he said.
While noting that Nigeria is the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa apart from South Africa to develop and release GM food crop, the Acting Director-General, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof. Alex Akpa said it would help reduce the number of chemicals farmers spray six to seven times to only two times per cropping season and as a result realise better yield in quantity and quality.
“Our primitive agricultural practices are facing various challenges and from what we are seeing all over the world, science and technology holds the keys to overcoming these challenges”, he said.
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