GM beans, maize as catalyst for achieving food security

Food security remains a major challenge in the country due to low productivity by farmers and the adoption of modern biotechnology practice has been recommended by researchers towards achieving self-sufficiency. JULIANA AGBO writes on the newly improved variety of beans called Pod Borer Resistant Cowpea and the progress made so far on the development of GM maize in Nigeria (TELA maize).

As farmers continue to face the challenge of traditionally low yield factors due to attacks by pests and diseases on crops, the country still depends largely on imports to meet up with local consumption.

Crops such as beans (cowpea) and maize are highly vulnerable to pest infestation, while lack of high yielding seeds and climate change are also other factors that negatively affect yields, which reduce farmers’ income.

For beans, pests such as the Pod Borer insect also called Maruca Vitrata has the capacity to damage over 80 per cent of bean pods, while pests such as Fall Army Worm (FAW) can result in the loss of over 70 percent in maize production.

The horrors of huge losses on investment and the battle to break even have discouraged many farmers from venturing into beans and maize cultivation which have resulted in Nigeria being one of the net importers of this valuable produce in Africa.

According to a 2019 report by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Nigeria with a shortfall of 500, 000 tons in beans spends N16 billion annually to import cowpea from neighbouring countries like Cameroon and Burkina Faso despite being the number one producer.

While data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in 2020 states that the country is currently producing about 10.5 million metric tons of maize per annum with a demand of 15 million metric tons, leaving a supply-demand gap of 4.5 million tons per annum.

However, scientists in the country took up the challenge and were able to develop crop varieties that can withstand pests and other productivity issues to assist the country close that import gap.

The researchers at the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State developed and released PBR cowpea which can resist maruca and two notorious parasitic weeds striga and alectra, while TELA Maize which can resist pests such as Stem Borer, FAW and tolerate drought to boost farmers’ production is already at the point of environmental release.

Speaking on the PBR cowpea in December 2020 during a town hall meeting with farmers in Kano State, the Executive Director of IAR, Professor Mohammad Ishyaku said the newly released bean variety does not differ in any way from already existing cowpea other than the improvements made to its resistance-to-pests capacity.

Prof. Ishyaku who is the Principal Investigator of the project said the yield increase from the PBR cowpea is estimated to be N48 billion every year if one million hectares of the country’s land is grown to this variety.

Why the PBR cowpea will make a difference

Nigeria’s decision to develop and approve the genetically modified cowpea has boosted hopes for technology in Africa and a way to encourage farmers who lost hope in continuing with bean production.

For most Nigerians, the newly improved bean variety will make a huge difference because the legume is a major source of protein which provides a healthy alternative to meat and other animal protein. It is also rich in soluble fiber which helps lower blood cholesterol.

This is because most family menus are not left out from making different recipes of beans such as moi-moi (bean cake or pudding), akara (bean buns ), beans porridge, fried beans, dan wake (beans dumplings) a northern Nigerian recipe, ewa agoyin (popular Yoruba bean recipe), bean soup (gbegiri) among others.

Also, different preparations of these recipes are what most Nigerians use to earn a living either at restaurants or roadside joints. Most popular recipes are akara, beans porridge, moi-moi and ewa agoyin.

The legume which is consumed by both rural and urban dwellers has in recent times witnessed an increase in its cost price across the country due to low productivity.

This has made lovers of the delicacy find it more difficult to buy this source of protein in order to fulfill their daily dietary and economic needs.

Apart from this, the use of chemicals to protect cowpea against pests and insect invasion have also resulted in food poisoning and other forms of diseases which has left many lovers of it to shiver.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 2020 report on the state of food security and nutrition in the world, states that unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases ranging from diarrhoea to cancers.

It said an estimated 600 million people or almost one in 10 fall ill and about 420,000 die from eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins, or chemicals every year.

The report further states that $110 billion is lost each year to medical expenses resulting from unsafe food in low- and middle-income countries.

However, experts have assured that with the PBR cowpea, the application of chemicals for protection against insect and pest will be reduced drastically and farmers will be able to produce more without spending much to satisfy local demand and also export so as to increase the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Speaking on the possibilities of storage weevils attacking the beans, the principal investigator of the PBR cowpea said efforts were being made by scientists to improve on the GM cowpea so that it could resist the attack of the storage weevil which destroys the cowpea after harvest.

According to him, there is a serious storage weevil called cowpea storage weevil threatening cowpea consumers’ health especially when they are stored improperly, but we have so far developed very safe and cheap preservation method that can keep the cowpea grains healthy for a long period of time without the use of chemical.

“We are continually improving as long as consumers, processors come up with problems, we will get back to our research and be able to solve the problem”, he said.

Ishyaku however said the bean variety was tested for nutritional value.

Corroborating this, the Trial Manager of PBR Cowpea, Mohammed Umar from the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Zaria, while explaining how the PBR cowpea was developed using modern technology, said the gene that confers the resistance to the crop is harmless which makes the cowpea safe for consumption and environment.

Furthermore, the PBR Cowpea Manager for AATF, Dr Issoufou Kollo, said the improved cowpea variety which brings true joy to cowpea farmers, would enable them make more money which they can use to expand their farms, pay for the children’s education, buy other basic needs and pay for healthcare services.

Kollo said the farmers’ expression at the town hall meeting showed they were satisfied with the result they got from planting the PBR Cowpea.

TELA maize

The TELA Maize Project is a public-private partnership coordinated by the AATF which is working towards initiating commercialisation of transgenic drought-tolerant and insect-protected maize varieties to enhance food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The project is a work in progress that was adopted in Nigeria in 2019 as it is currently being developed in six African countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ethiopia and South Africa.

Why Nigeria need TELA maize

Maize is one of the main cereal crops of West Africa. It is the fourth most consumed cereal during the past two decades, after sorghum, millet and rice in Nigeria.

According to a 2020 report by agricdemy.com, the cereal crop which is the world’s highest supplier of calories with a caloric supply of about 19.5 percent, provides more calories than rice (16.5 percent) and wheat (15.0 percent).

Apart from being a highest supplier of calorie, maize is used industrially by flour millers, brewers, bakers of bread and confectionery and animal feed manufacturers which contributes greatly to the nation’s economy.

Despite its high production volumes, maize farming in Nigeria yields an average of 1.8 MT/ha which is one of the lowest among the top 10 maize producers in Africa. It lags behind countries such as Egypt and South Africa where the yields are 7.7MT/ha and 5.3MT/ha respectively making it difficult to totally meet the domestic and industrial maize demand, the report by agricdemy.com also stated.

A 2018 report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, showed that Nigeria suffered great devastation from FAW, in the 2017/2018 planting season, when over $268 million was lost from 7.8 million hectares of farmland damaged by the pest in just four states of Abia, Ekiti, Ondo, and Oyo States, a big threat to maize production and food security in Nigeria.

Also, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its 2020 grain report, put Nigeria’s midyear 2020/21 maize production at 9 million tons, a 13 percent decline when compared to 11.5 million tons forecasted last year.

This shows a serious decline in maize production across the country which may lead to loss of jobs across the maize value chain.

This decline in maize production according to experts may also lead to the collapse of the N10 trillion poultry industry in which five million people may also lose jobs.

In 2020, the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) raised the alarm over the rising cost of maize and effects of COVID-19 on the industry.

Analysing the need for the new maize variety in the country, the Principal Investigator of TELA maize project at the IAR, Professor Rabiu Adamu said, Nigeria’s quest to introduce maize varieties resistant to insect pests such as Stem Borer, FAW and drought came from the experience of farmers spending so much in using chemical for protection against pest without getting a good result.

Adamu who made this known to The Nation during a tour at the research farm of IAR in Zaria, said the insects and droughts are the biggest threat to Nigeria’s food security which requires at least N46,000 naira to spray one acre (0.405 ha) of farm each season to give good protection against the FAW.

He said not many farmers can afford to buy chemicals to spray their farm against protection and in most cases, they end up abandoning their farms to the pest.

The Professor explained that Nigerian agriculture is continuously being challenged with climate change, which result into two environmental conditions characterised by either shortage of rainfall, which is very much needed to grow crops, or excessive rainfall leading to flooding of farm land.

He said preliminary findings showed that under stem borer and fall armyworm infestation, the TELA maize varieties gave over two tons yield advantage relative to the best varieties currently being grown by farmers.

“Before now, the highest maize yields ever recorded in the country were less than 3 tons per hectare, But with Tela Maize, we are recording 8 tons per hectare, this is more than double of what we got in our farms.

“TELA maize has reached an advantage in breeding and results have shown that it can stand against stem borer and fall army worm to protect maize which will boost production in the country “, he added.

An agriculture expert, Dr John Audu said Nigeria will be self-sufficient in maize production that will greatly improve the economy of the country as it will halt capital flight for the importation of maize from other economies.

Audu said farmers would witness bumper harvest which would bridge the wide gap between production and consumption.

Economic impact

On the economic aspect, Adamu said the new variety which would be made available to farmers in 2022 would save the country its import bill on maize which it spends importing over 4 million metric tonnes annually.

He added that TELA maize would reduce the use of pesticides by farmers and save the country from spending $168 million worth of chemical import annually.

According to him, preliminary findings from the first phase of the trials showed that maize farmers in the country stand to benefit when the maize is commercialised as the varieties will save farmers production cost up to hundreds of millions of naira from pesticides spray to the control stem borer and the fall armyworm.

While explaining that the demand for maize will double by 2025, he said the new crop variety will boost production yields by 50 per cent compared to non-transgenic varieties due to protection from insect damages.

Farmers’ feedback

Comparing the cost of production of the GM and the conventional beans variety when The Nation visited the site farmers cultivated the PBR cowpea in October 2020, Sanusi Dankawu, a middle-aged beans farmer in Kano State, said the conventional cowpea is capital intensive compared to the PBR cowpea which he sprays just twice before waiting for harvest.

According to him, “When we got the new variety and we planted it the same time we planted the conventional cowpea, for the conventional cowpea, we kept on applying chemicals all day long which is capital intensive, but with the new variety, we applied chemicals twice and we are expecting high yield”.

Dankawu who was yet to harvest at the time the The Nation visited, said the new bean variety has high potential which saves farmers the stress of applying chemicals on farm and during storage.

He said: “Using this variety, one can get triple the use of the old variety that we have been using, it indicates that this variety has high potential.

The middle-aged farmer who is also into maize farming, expressed optimism that the TELA maize will give better yield returns like the PBR cowpea.

Mohammed Saliu, a young maize farmer in Kaduna State said TELA maize would relieve a lot of farmers the stress of pests and drought.

Saliu, who is also the Chairman Maize Farmers Association of Nigeria (MAAN) in Kaduna state, said farmers have been looking out for this kind of variety and this would help them greatly by saving their money from buying pesticides and also help boost production.

He said: “Considering the nature of land and environment that we have in this country, we would like to have this kind of maize. I am quite sure that if this maize is distributed to our farmers, it will help our farmers to get more yields compared to the one we are using currently.

“The variety of maize we are using now gives us about four (4) to five (5)tons per hectare, but with what we have here, we can get up to eight (8) tons per hectare, this is a better advancement in maize production”.

Another smallholder farmer in Kano, 33-year old Khalid Salihu, said in a hectare of PBR cowpea farm, he saved over N20,000 he used to spend buying chemicals to control Pod Borer insects in the conventional cowpea.

The beans farmer who said he sprays just two times on the PBR Cowpea in order to control other pests attacking the crop, said he needs to spray up to 9 times on the conventional bean variety in order to control both the Maruca Vitrata and other insects.

While noting that a farmer would spend about N26,000 to purchase chemical and labour in cultivating one hectare of conventional variety of cowpea, he said a farmer would use one and half litres of chemical which cost about N6,000 for the whole planting season of PBR cowpea.

Speaking on maturity, he said the PBR Cowpea needs about 70 days to mature for harvest while the conventional one takes about 85 to 90 days.

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