Building brains with better bread

Bread made with flour from the nutritious cowpea (black-Eyed Peas), is coming to the rescue of school children, increasingly at risk of protein deficiency, under a feeding project being piloted in Dakar, Senegal.

Cowpea, commonly known as niebe in Senegal, is one of the ingredients in the fortified bread being produced by Senegal’s Institute of Food Technology (ITA) to help improve nutrition in school children. The programme will be piloted in three schools in Senegal’s Guela Tapec District during the upcoming school term.

The fortified bread is made with 85 percent wheat, 15 percent cowpea flour and peanut butter. ITA is one of the research organisations around the world promoting the much neglected cow pea in the fight against malnutrition. Cowpea is packed with protein, vitamins and minerals ideal for childhood development.

"We realised that many school children leave homes without eating and cannot have milk because it is expensive so we have fortified the bread to deal with the lack of protein," ITA Director General, Dr. Ababacar Ndoye.

Introducing fortified bread is helping provide nutrition at an affordable cost not just for school children alone as the price of wheat flour is one the rise. The ITA pilot bakery is producing 160 loaves for promotion ahead of piloting the programmes in schools.

"We will expand the feeding programme to all the schools in Dakar," Dr. Ndoye said.

Fortified bread is one of the innovations of value-addition of the nutritious cow pea which after many years of neglect is enjoying new interest from scientists. Research on enhancing the profile of cowpea as a viable income generating and food security crop is the focus of a four day meeting, 5th World Cowpea Research Conference in Saly, Senegal from 27 September to 1 October 2010.

Cowpea 2010: Scientists to meet in Dakar to boost cowpeas for food security

Hundreds of experts from around the world will gather in Dakar, Senegal from 27 September to 1 October 2010 for the Fifth World Cowpea Research Conference to discuss threats to the survival and farm production of black eyed peas—one of Africa's oldest and most resilient and nutritious crops.

From its humble origins in the drier regions of West Africa, where farmers have grown the black-eyed pea (also known as cowpea) for 5000 years, it was carried to the United States in the bellies of slave ships, and then introduced to the world through international trade. Today, black-eyed peas are a global commodity, grown in nearly every region of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 70 percent of total world 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.” --Hartmann, director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

In years to come, scientists believe that black-eyed peas could lead the way in Africa’s effort to fight malnutrition among its growing population and confront the effects of climate change. The shifting weather patterns threatening to desiccate farmer’s fields across the continent put a spotlight on crops like the black-eyed pea that are rich in vitamins and protein and do well in hot, dry conditions. Black-eyed peas have the added benefit of releasing nitrogen that revives depleted soils.

“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 Hartmann, director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), which is co-hosting the World Cowpea Research Conference with the Government of Senegal, the Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support Program, and Purdue University. "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.”

Scientists will meet in Dakar to discuss key constraints to cowpea production, share progress being made in advanced cowpea genomics, and consider the best ways to unlock cowpea’s potential as a hedge against climate change, hunger, and poverty.

NIGERIAN FARMERS TO REAP NEW BENEFITS IN 2010

Farmers in Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kogi,
Nasarawa and Benue will receive
the improved cassava varieties.

Farmers in seven Nigerian states will benefit from the distribution of free improved cassava varieties, thanks to the IITA implemented project "Unleashing the Power of Cassava in Africa".

Richardson Okechukwu, the IITA-UPoCA Deputy Project Manager, said: “In Nigeria, we aim to empower 75,000 farms with improved varieties by the end of 2010. We also expect cassava yield in these areas to increase by at least 30%.”

But the distribution of improved cassava varieties is only one of a number of activities planned for 2010 by the project.

Researchers are also pushing improved processing and utilization technologies to create more markets for the crop.

Awareness building is also a top priority and at two Training of Trainers courses, farmers, processors, Women in Agriculture of Agricultural Development Programs, NGOs, and other private business firms were given special lessons on how to maximise their work.

Participants were taught how to process 21 food products and exposed to mechanized processing using motorized cassava graters and double screw presses both developed by IITA. The course also stressed the importance of packaging, marketing and labelling.

2010 is quickly shaping up to be the year for Nigerian cassava growers and processors. With the help of IITA they should see an increase in incomes and food security.

IITA’s UPoCA project, funded by US AID,
is also being implemented in Sierra Leone, Ghana,
Tanzania, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo,
and Mozambique.

CONTROLLING THE WHITEFLY

Researchers at IITA are intensifying efforts to find a sustainable and natural solution to control populations of the whitefly - Bemisia tabaci.

These tiny insects transmit the viruses that cause Cassava Mosaic Disease and Cassava Brown Streak Disease. Together these diseases are wreaking havoc with Africa’s cassava production, causing an estimated US$ 1 billion worth of damage annually.

In addition to transmitting viruses, whitefly also cause physical damage to the cassava plants. Studies conducted in Uganda showed that yield losses from whitefly damage alone can be as much as 50%.

IITA is investing in a two year project that will identify the most effective natural enemies of the whitefly so they can be deployed to reduce their populations. It will also explore cassava varieties, including wild relatives, with resistance to the pest. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture and the University of Tel Aviv in Israel and will target Nigeria, Cameroon, and Tanzania.

The whitefly has several parasitoid (parasitic wasps) enemies that develop within young whitefly larvae, eventually killing them. Although local parasitoids already take out up to half of all whitefly young, the new project aims to make this control even stronger by introducing exotic varieties.

Dr James Legg, an IITA entomologist who has been working on cassava diseases for over 10 years, said: “We have been studying the biological characteristics and genetics of this ‘super-abundant’ Bemisia whitefly and assessing its local natural enemies. With the new project, we will intensify our efforts to search for and test the effectiveness of these natural enemies as part of an integrated disease management strategy.”

In the past IITA has successfully implemented classical biocontrol programmes. With this new project it is hoped that by combining biocontrols in novel ways with host plant resistance greater strides can be made in tackling one of Africa’s most destructive pests.

Adult whitefly.

IITA HELPS THAILAND WITH A NASTY INFESTATION

The Government of Thailand, through its Department of Agriculture has requested the assistance of IITA to help in the biological control of the cassava mealybug, which has recently invaded the country and possibly Laos and Cambodia.

The cassava mealybug, Phenacoccus manihoti, is originally from South America. It sucks the sap out of plants causing abnormal growth, a sooty mould, wilting and discolouration. A severe attack can have devastating effects on cassava plantations. 

 The mealybug has already spread over 160,000 hectares across the East and North-eastern provinces of Thailand, where cassava is an important export crop. The bug was not immediately recognized because another closely related mealybug species common on cassava confused the situation.

To halt the spread of the mealybug a colony of wasps, the natural enemy of the pest, has been imported into Thailand from the IITA laboratories in Benin by Georg Goergen, an IITA Entomologist.

Anagyrus lopezi is a parasitoid wasp that also comes from South America. It lays its eggs on the cassava mealybug so that when its larvae are fully grown they can eat the bug. Using a biological control like this wasp negates the need for harmful chemicals.

The same mealybug caused widespread devastation and famine when it destroyed cassava in Africa in the late 1970s. IITA came to the rescue then too, when they led a group of institutions in a campaign to find, import, rear and distribute the wasps from South America. By 1981, the wasps were located in Paraguay and later in Brazil; then shipped to IITA where they were mass-reared and distributed. The campaign was one of the greatest recent successes in biological control.

The African success story means that experts are able to deal with infestations faster and at reduced costs because of the techniques learnt then. It is hoped that IITA’s involvement in the mealybug control project in Asia will produce similar positive results.