Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

26 AATF Annual Report 2012
whether there is any yield drag associated with the transgene. The results
did not show any yield drag by the transgene after the data was analysed.
Following the grant of the three-year permit to CSIR-SARI to
conduct CFTs, the Ghana team led by the Principal Investigator and an
entomologist visited the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), Nigeria
to familiarise themselves with the operations of implementing CFTs and
managing Maruca rearing. Six lines including the two promising lines
from the Nigeria and Burkina Faso trials will be tested under high insect
pressure in Ghana in 2013. Plans are underway to establish a Marucarearing
facility for artificial infestation of these lines to determine efficacy
in controlling Maruca in Ghana.
The multi-locational testing planned
for 2013 in Nigeria will be conducted in
12.5 million
hectares of land on which
cowpea is grown in Africa
200 million
average number of people in
Africa who consume cowpea
three IAR sites located in Zamfara, Kano
and Kaduna states. The sites have been
inspected by the country’s NBC and have
been approved. Lines that will be tested
in these locations include seed obtained
by incorporating the Bt gene from the
donor parent into farmer-preferred
varieties through breeding.
Denis T Kyetere (left) from AATF and Jean Baptiste De la Salle Tignegere, the Principal Investigator for
the Cowpea Project in Burkina Faso, at the Bt cowpea confined field trial in Farako Ba, Burkina Faso in
October 2012
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers