Preservation of cowpea grain in sub-Saharan Africa—Bean/Cowpea CRSP contributions

In sub-Saharan Africa, post-harvest insect pests of cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) degrade the nutritional quality and economic value of the grain and cause producers, in anticipation of losses during storage, to sell at harvest when the price is lowest. Principal pest is the cowpea bruchid, Callosobruchus maculatus (F.), but other bruchids cause losses as well. Beginning in the 1980s, the USAID-funded Bean/Cowpea Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) targeted post-harvest insect pests of cowpea as a constraint meriting an investment in research and development. Subsequently, researchers in Senegal, Cameroon, and at Purdue University, created and helped disseminate numerous simple, low cost, and environmentally friendly technologies for managing post-harvest insect pests. Technologies developed and disseminated with the help of NGOs such as World Vision International, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture’s PRONAF program, and FAO’s Harare, Zimbabwe, office included: (1) a highly effective drum storage technology developed at ISRA, Senegal, and now widely adopted in Senegal; (2) a solar disinfestation technique developed at Purdue and at IRAD, Maroua, Cameroon, now being disseminated in many African countries; (3) an improved ash storage procedure; (4) a bagging technology utilizing triple plastic bags; (5) two cowpea cultivars expressing combined seed and pod wall resistance to cowpea bruchids, released by the Cameroon government in 1999.