English - McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program

McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crops Research Project No: 06-741
results. Farmers were monitored and they managed to get good crops and yields and were motivated to
produce cowpeas. These farmers have been advised to store some of their seeds so that they can plant
more cowpeas next season. They were also trained on principles of cowpea seed production during field
days and visits.
Output 2.4: Cowpea marketing opportunity identified
In Malawi, cowpea market value chain workshops which brought representatives of cowpea producers,
middlemen and traders were conducted in Lilongwe and Zomba in August 2009. The workshops were
held to establish the linkages between cowpea producers (farmers) with the markets and to identify
increased marketing opportunities. The workshop revealed that there are six big business traders who
buy cowpea seeds (ADMARC, Rab Processors, Mulli Brothers, Agora, Grain Traders Association, and
Transglobe) most of them paced emphasis on large seeded grain types as preferences.
In Tanzania, the workshop was not held due to poor cowpea yields as a result of poor rainfall; hence
farmers had nothing to offer to the traders. It is scheduled for May 2009 in Dodoma
A paper - Gabriel, M. M.; Hella, J.P. and Mbwaga, A.M (2008) Assessment of Cowpea Marketing
Efficiency: A case study of selected regions in Tanzania” will appear in the forthcoming AGREST
conference proceedings Vol. 8 which is in press. Plan is underway to publish a paper in an international
Journal for wider circulation. This is the first paper on cowpea marketing published in Tanzania
Implication of the research findings
During the past year, the project partners have built on work begun in year 1 and 2 to strengthen farmer
groups, establish on farm trials and demonstrations, to take forward a cowpea-breeding programme,
cowpea marketing stakeholders and to finalize marketing studies for Malawi. Crossing programme to
incorporate resistance to Alectra into released commercial varieties has reached backcross 3 going in
backcross 4 in Tanzania and backcross 2 in Malawi (due to delayed start in Malawi) These
achievements will allow the project to move forward with next stage of the agreed work plan to
undertake activities in the following ways;
1. The project continues to support capacity building of farmer groups especially those new ones so
that they are well informed about the aims of the project. Providing short term benefits for group
membership should encourage continued participation in trials and other project activities.
2. Crossing programme will continue up to backcross 6 by November 2010 in Tanzania, while in
Malawi will be at backcross 4 because of late start.
3. Wide scaling out identified Alectra resistant cowpea lines for Tanzania are three lines
TZA 263, IT 99K-7-21-2-2-1 and IT 99K-573-1-1 and in Malawi are entries IT97K-825-15,
IT99K-494-6 and IT99K-7-21-2-2-1
4. Market studies have been completed in Tanzania and a stakeholders meeting will be conducted next
financial year and in Malawi data is being analysed, a separate report will be prepared. Preliminary
results were shared during the value chain workshops held in Lilongwe and Zomba respectively
5. Farmer groups continued to be equipped with knowledge on QDS production and eventually. It is
envisaged that QDS seed be bought by the project and then re-packed and farmers be given each
member of the group give five new farmers of his choice to produce grain which can then be
marketed by the group with aim to increase volume of grain production and hence increase grain for
market at the same time popularize the varieties to more farmers.
6. Since iron and zinc levels in cowpea leaves have shown to be significantly higher than the levels in
cowpea grains, creating more awareness and encouraging the utilization of cowpea leaves will
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2009