Peter Theuri
For years, the Maruca pod borer, Maruca vitrata, that notorious, pantropical insect pest that decimates leguminous crops like pigeon pea, cowpea, mung bean and soybean, played a winning game of hide-and-seek with Ghanaian cowpea farmers, frustrating them season after season.
It stood as the most damaging of pests devouring cowpea, and was responsible for up to 80% of yield losses. Dr. Jerry Asalma Nboyine, Principal Research Scientist and Entomologist at CSIR – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI) in Nyankpala, Ghana, explains that even farmers most valiant efforts at spraying it away were futile.
“The moth of this insect lays eggs on racemes and flowers, and when they hatch, the larvae/caterpillars survive by feeding on the flowers and pods. The larvae are internal feeders and hence, application of insecticides to control them is ineffective,” he says.
Consequently, farmers that spent about 300 hours of their time on a hectare of cowpea field only got 500 kg of grains instead of the expected over 2000 kg of grains, Dr Nboyine says.
Ghanaian scientists working on the crop unanimously agreed that they needed to quickly counter this bug. The most tenable solution, they agreed, was to develop a genetically modified (GM) cowpea, one that would be able to offer complete protection against the Maruca pod borer. This way, farmers would have to spray their crops less, reducing their expenses and time on the farm, exposing the environment to less pesticides, and would be guaranteed of better harvests. There were a few challenges, though.
“The main impediment was that this was the first time scientists were working on a homegrown genetically modified organism (GMO). Hence, all stakeholders were both learning and executing at the same time. With limited experience in practicing this type of science, everyone was extremely careful in the conduct of activities, taking extra precautions to avoid any unintended future consequences. This approach caused unnecessary delay in getting the product to the market,” he says.
Secondly, once the seed was ready for trials, it was now time to convince the public that the new cowpea was ultimately made with the idea of providing a better option. This, says Dr Nboyine, is not a one-off effort. With new products of agricultural biotechnology susceptible to bouts of misinformation and disinformation, and with the sometimes-glaring gap between science and society inspiring misunderstanding, scientists embarked on an awareness-creation campaign that is still ongoing.
But with holders of political office, often lambasted for fueling falsehoods that appeal to their constituents’ emotions and hence frustrating science, now keen to learn about agricultural biotechnology and a possible route to food security, scientists have had an easier time than initially anticipated.
“We continue to advocate for the need for the technology but clarify that it is not the silver bullet to our food security challenges; other systems are still relevant and all hands must be on deck. The good thing is that, the threat from political office holders has been minimal with most of them being open to learn about everything. Taking advantage of their openness is key to sustaining the system.”
The country’s regulatory authority, The National Biosafety Authority (NBA), and its staff are open to discussions and keen on using regulation to derive the best solutions for the country, Dr Nboyine says. “Hence, if as developers we can properly explain the benefits of our work and share experiences, we are likely to derive the best from regulators. Also, through the development of this product, the capacity of local scientists in practically going through a regulatory system while developing a product was built. These are all good for national development and delivering value to local farmers and consumers.”
Starting from scratch, he says, it took Ghana nearly 10 years, excluding early stages of transformation, to move from confined field trials to attaining introduction into the environment, and another 2 years to get a variety release and finally approximately 2 years for complete access to seeds by farmers.
“These notwithstanding, we have not reached the last-mile farmer with our seeds yet.”
For Ghanaian cowpea farmers, especially after losing their crop every so often, the release of the GM variety was a “great relief” and even led to a frantic rush for the seeds.
“They nick-named it “the farmers saviour” in the local language. Most others (Ghanaians) needed healthy food and didn’t care about what critics were saying,” says Dr Nboyine.
Now, farmers have reduced their insecticides sprays, have their crop early maturing, and the threat from terminal drought is technically, effectively mitigated.
“For example, in 2024, there was both in-season and terminal drought in certain locations in northern Ghana, farmers who planted the free seed packs distributed during the product launch did not incur much losses compared to other varieties. A similar occurrence happened in some communities around Ejura in Ashanti Region of Ghana where a farmer who planted the GM cowpea had excellent field establishment and podding while nearby farmers sufferred losses when there was drought; according to the farmer, his colleagues kept asking what variety he was using and he referred them to CSIR-SARI. It is also ideal for locations with short duration of rains. The high yields imply farmers get more grains for home use or for sale and this improves livelihoods,” he says.
In speeding up their pursuit of approval in their country, Ghana’s scientists sought a copy of Nigeria’s approval. Nigeria had officially approved the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) Pod-Borer-Resistant (PBR) cowpea (known as Sampea 20-T) on January 29, 2019, through the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA).
In Ghana, as in Nigeria, the Maruca pod borer now finds a wiser, better equipped farmer, who will not sit back and watch desperately as the yield is all but decimated, and whose contribution to society’s food security is more assured.