Some cowpea farmers in the Northern Region have expressed their readiness to adopt and cultivate the BT cowpea seed to help increase their yields for food security, improve their health and incomes.

They said the challenges with the cultivation of the existing cowpea seeds were making the sector unattractive to them, hence their desire to shift to the BT cowpea seed.

The farmers appealed to the National Biosafety Authority (NBA) to expedite its regulatory activities to approve the BT cowpea seed for commercial cultivation in the country.

They were speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Nyankpala after a visit to a BT Cowpea seed varietal trial field at Nyankpala in the Tolon District of the Northern Region to observe how the field was doing compared to the existing cowpea seeds that they cultivated.

Mr Adam Fuseini, who has been cultivating cowpea at Nyankpala for the past five years, told the GNA that he got only up to three bags of cowpea from an acre farm even though he had to spray the farm for up to eight times using chemicals before harvesting.

He said, “We are suffering a lot. I spend a lot of money to cultivate the existing cowpea seed but upon harvest, I do not break even. Because of persistent spraying using chemicals, I feel some health problems. We are appealing to the government to approve the BT Cowpea seed for us to increase our yields so that we can feed the entire country.”

The BT Cowpea, which is a genetically modified crop developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), was approved last year by the NBA for environmental release.

The CSIR-SARI has been working on the BT Cowpea seed for over 10 years now, and following the approval for its environmental release, there are ongoing varietal release trials in certain areas of the country, and it is expected that the NBA will soon grant the approval for the commercialisation of the BT Cowpea for it to be made available to farmers for cultivation.

With the BT Cowpea, farmers will reduce spraying of their farms from eight times to two times, prevent up to 80 per cent of pest destruction on cowpea farms, and harvest up to 20 times more on their cowpea farms.

Currently, demand for cowpea in the country stands at 167,000 metric tonnes but only 57,000 metric tonnes is produced locally with the rest imported from other countries.

This is necessitating the development of the BT Cowpea seed to among others increase local production to meet the demand and even export to other countries to earn foreign exchange.

Mr Haruna Abdul-Mumin, who has been cultivating cowpea for the past five years at Golomanchayili in the Tolon District, also told the GNA that it was expensive to purchase chemicals to spray the cowpea field, adding due to pest attacks, yields were low resulting in losses after harvest.

He said, “the BT Cowpea will be very helpful for us” and appealed for it to be approved immediately for commercialisation in the country.

Musah Rashidatu said, “We are eagerly expecting the approval of the BT Cowpea seed. It will help me a lot. I have seen that the BT cowpea is different from the one I plant.”

Professor Marian Quain, Deputy Director-General of CSIR, who joined the farmers and scientists from CSIR-SARI, and the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) Ghana to visit the field, said the farmers were right in their demands for quick approval for the commercialisation of the BT Cowpea seed in the country.

Professor Quain said, “I wished it had happened faster because getting a transgenic crop is not an overnight process. But once you have had it, there are so many processes you have to go through before you can regularise it, and these are based on our laws and regulations."

"So, I will really appreciate if these are hastened to ensure that once we have come out with a quality material, it will quickly be in the hands of the end users for them to benefit fully from the technology that we are churning out as researchers.”

Meanwhile, prior to the field trip, OFAB Ghana held a day’s workshop for media practitioners in Tamale on the current developments regarding genetically modified organisms in the country.

It was to enable the journalists to better appreciate the issues and to educate the public to counter the disinformation being spread by some people about the BT Cowpea seed.