Transforming the cowpea, an African orphan staple crop grown predominantly by women

Murdock, Larry L.; Sithole-Niang, Idah; Higgins, Thomas J.

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139208475.015

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Women are more involved in cultivating cowpea in Burkina Faso than in Mali, but both men and women grow the crop. Our findings therefore challenge the idea that cowpea is cultivated mostly by women in the region (Murdock et al 2013;Tamini et al 2019).…”

Section: Facts or Folklore: Is Cowpea A Women's Crop?contrasting

confidence: 55%

Is cowpea a ‘women’s crop’ in Mali? Implications for value chain development

Smale¹,

Thériault²,

Allen³

et al. 2022

AFJARE

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Cowpea, which is produced primarily in West Africa, is valued locally for its agronomic benefits in dryland farming, nutritional content, and contribution to the livelihoods of farming families. Many feel that more investment in cowpea research and development is needed for the crop to achieve its economic potential. Cowpea has long been labelled a ‘women’s crop’. We tested whether this is the case in Mali by exploring five indicators with a combination of primary and secondary databases, and interpreting our results in the context of the regional literature. We conclude that, in Mali, cowpea is better characterised as a ‘women’s enterprise’. Men are more likely than women to plant cowpea as either a primary or secondary crop and tend to plant larger areas, with cowpea intercropped. In drier agro-ecologies, women are more likely to grow cowpea than other crops. Although subsample sizes are very small, women cowpea growers appear to earn more on average from selling the harvest from their individual plots than do men. Women represent 99% of traders of processed cowpea products in the open-air markets we surveyed. In the production segment of the value chain, investments to facilitate women’s access to improved cowpea seed and local markets would support their commercial orientation. Investments in women’s trade in processed cowpea products, including the provision of credit, storage, and training in organisational capacity, would enhance their incomes and their livelihoods.

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Section: Facts or Folklore: Is Cowpea A Women's Crop?contrasting

confidence: 55%

Is cowpea a ‘women’s crop’ in Mali? Implications for value chain development

Smale¹,

Thériault²,

Allen³

et al. 2022

AFJARE

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“…However, the majority of the farmers still grow unimproved varieties/local cowpea −90% in Malawi, 89.1% in Mozambique and 68.7% in Tanzania ( IFPRI, 2020 ). Like in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa ( Murdock et al, 2013 ), cowpea in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania is primarily produced by women as well as the youth as a source of food and income. It was unclear whether the reported low adoption rates reflected the fact that the varieties released in these countries do not meet women and youth preferences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding specific gender dynamics in the cowpea value chain for key traits to inform cowpea breeding programs in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania

Chipeta,

Kampanje-Phiri,

Moyo

et al. 2024

Front. Sociol.

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IntroductionCowpea is an important food and nutrition security crop in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania and it is mainly produced by women farmers mainly on a subsistence scale. The majority of these farmers use local varieties despite the availability of improved varieties in the region. Low acceptability and adoption of improved varieties have also hampered cowpea breeding efforts. The low adoption, especially among women farmers, has been attributed to the failure by breeding programs to involve farmers in the process of designing and developing improved varieties with a view to meeting their priorities and preferences. Despite women constituting the majority of cowpea farmers in these countries, no comprehensive gender analysis on cowpea value chain had been instituted to understand the traits that are gender and youth responsive and how to incorporate them in the product profiling so that the developed varieties benefit men, women and youth. The main objective of the gender study was, therefore, to identify preferred traits by different gender groups within the whole cowpea value chain to inform cowpea breeding programs in the three countries.MethodsThe study employed quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate preferences, including value chain mapping, a quantitative survey of farmers, focus group discussions and key informant interviews targeting farmers/consumers, traders, policymakers and processors.Results and discussionResults showed that the top-ranking traits in order of importance across the countries and gender were; (1) high grain yield, (2) good grain taste, (3) early maturity time, (4) large grain size, (5) good leaf taste and (6) short cooking time. It was further noted that different gender groups preferred almost similar traits though minor variations were noted in terms of prioritization of these traits. These results have had two major influences on our cowpea breeding program: firstly, the breeding program changed the way it prioritizes traits to include ones that reflect the needs of men, women and the youth in the cowpea value chain. Secondly, our breeding objectives are closely aligned to gender differences in the target population of farmers and other users, by incorporating key priority traits that address the needs of both men and women, including the youth. That is to say, product targets and specific product profiles are more gender sensitive. Since the breeding work is ongoing, the expectation is that the development of improved varieties resulting from this gender sensitive process will translate into higher adoption levels of these varieties (compared with previous releases), which might have ripple effects on food, nutrition and income security in the region.

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“…Among legumes, cowpea stands out as a potential food and nutritional security crop (da Silva et al., 2018), and this realization has, in recent times, drawn significant research attention to this crop that has been deemed as “the African orphan crop” (Murdock et al., 2013). Despite its potential, cowpea productivity has been limited by several constraints, both biotic and abiotic, particularly diseases, insect pests, parasitic weeds, drought and heat stresses, and soil nutrient deficiencies (Boukar et al., 2019; C. A. Fatokun et al., 2002; Horn & Shimelis, 2020; Nkomo et al., 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic progress in cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] stemming from breeding modernization efforts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Ongom,

Fatokun,

Togola

et al. 2024

The Plant Genome

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Genetic gain has been proposed as a quantifiable key performance indicator that can be used to monitor breeding programs’ effectiveness. The cowpea breeding program at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has developed and released improved varieties in 70 countries globally. To quantify the genetic changes to grain yield and related traits, we exploited IITA cowpea historical multi‐environment trials (METs) advanced yield trial (AYT) data from 2010 to 2022. The genetic gain assessment targeted short duration (SD), medium duration (MD), and late duration (LD) breeding pipelines. A linear mixed model was used to calculate the best linear unbiased estimates (BLUE). Regressed BLUE of grain yield by year of genotype origin depicted realized genetic gain of 22.75 kg/ha/year (2.65%), 7.91 kg/ha/year (0.85%), and 22.82 kg/ha/year (2.51%) for SD, MD, and LD, respectively. No significant gain was realized in 100‐seed weight (Hsdwt). We predicted, based on 2022 MET data, that recycling the best genotypes at AYT stage would result in grain yield gain of 37.28 kg/ha/year (SD), 28.00 kg/ha/year (MD), and 34.85 kg/ha/year (LD), and Hsdwt gain of 0.48 g/year (SD), 0.68 g/year (MD), and 0.55 g/year (LD). These results demonstrated a positive genetic gain trend for cowpea, indicating that a yield plateau has not yet been reached and that accelerated gain is expected with the recent integration of genomics in the breeding program. Advances in genomics include the development of the reference genome, genotyping platforms, quantitative trait loci mapping of key traits, and active implementation of molecular breeding.

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Transforming the cowpea, an African orphan staple crop grown predominantly by women

Cited by 6 publications

References 13 publications

Is cowpea a ‘women’s crop’ in Mali? Implications for value chain development

Is cowpea a ‘women’s crop’ in Mali? Implications for value chain development

Understanding specific gender dynamics in the cowpea value chain for key traits to inform cowpea breeding programs in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania

Genetic progress in cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] stemming from breeding modernization efforts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

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