Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

Bt Cowpea Project
25
Successful Bt cowpea
trials pave way for
multi-locational testing
in Nigeria as Ghana
receives approval for
first confined field trial
The Project made significant progress
with CFTs in Nigeria and Burkina Faso
recording consistent results with previous
trials that confirmed the efficacy of the tested
events against the Maruca pod borer. Ghana
also achieved a major milestone with the
grant of the approval to conduct CFTs.
Dr Prince Addae, Cowpea Project
Manager, AATF
Women dance at a festival in Mepe, Ghana
During 2012, Nigeria and Burkina Faso successfully conducted confined
field trials (CFTs) for the Maruca-Resistant Cowpea Project whose results
confirmed the efficacy of two events against the Maruca pod-borer. These
findings were consistent with results from previous trials conducted in
2011 in the two countries that indicated that lines 709A and 252D were
resistant to Maruca. These results paved way for multi-locational trials to
be conducted in Nigeria in 2013. The Project also achieved a significant
milestone following the approval granted by Ghana’s National Biosafety
Committee (NBC) in November 2012 to the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research – Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-
SARI) to conduct CFTs in 2013. This makes Ghana the third country in
Africa to conduct CFTs for Bt cowpea.
Apart from efficacy trials, the Project also compared and evaluated
the performance of the transgenic versus the non-transgenic lines against
the Maruca pod-borer. This was carried out through the installation of
both infested and non-infested trials in Nigeria. The un-infested trial was
conducted to demonstrate whether the transgenic lines perform comparably
to the non-transgenic parent line in the absence of insect damage and
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers