Wow!

Cowpeas as they should look

Two months of weevil work

A little history first …

Bean/Cowpea Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP)

The CRSP Technical Committee asked: Why produce more cowpea if you can’t store it?

Cameroon, November 1986 …

Can we devise technologies that allow people to store their cowpea grain after harvest with minimal losses?

Partnership between Purdue-Cameroon formed – one of the early participants was Ousmane Boukar; Laurie Kitch, Jane Wolfson, Dick Shade, Moffi T’Ama, Georges Ntoukam

Monoculture Cowpeas

Intercropped cowpea – real world

Background

CRSP Project (1987-2002) Goals

• Create simple, affordable, low-cost, implementable technologies to preserve cowpea grain after harvest on low-resource farms in Cameroon (later West/Central Africa)

• Do so via Collaboration Host-Country = USA Institution

• Define success this way: success ONLY if technologies are accepted and used by farmers.

Project Strategy & Tactics

• Learn from the PEOPLE• Jane Wolfson and Laurie Kitch• Frequent visits• Collaboration the key• Work in villages with villagers

• Create a smorgasbord of control tactics• Forget magic bullets• Simple, low-cost, available materials• No insecticides or chemicals

COWPEA STORAGE TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES (1987)

1. Storage in Ash2. Breeding for storage3. Solar disinfestation4. Genetic transformation5. Air-tight storage

The Triple-bagging (hermetic) technology

Adoption survey report – 2006

• Economists interviewed randomly chosen farmers in seven West African countries

• Plastic bagging technology had 23% adoption in Nigeria, 13% in Burkina Faso, etc.

• Net present value of the technology was $186,000,000; original investment was ca. $3,000,000

• In sum: Big Benefits – what next?

Bill & Melinda Gates Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) Project

• 5 years duration• Improve bagging storage technology• Extend technology to 3.7 million cowpea farm

families (47 million people)• Ten countries in West Africa• Budget $11.4 million

Lessons Learned …

1. Respect the people you are trying to help.

Lessons Learned …

2. Leave your arrogance at home

Lessons Learned …

3. Think simple, low-cost, practical and using available materials

Lessons Learned …

4. Try to understand how the people see the problem – see it through their eyes, not yours.

Lessons Learned …

5. Goal should be to see your technology USED …

Lessons Learned …

6. Plan for the loooooonnnnnng haul – 25 year time frame is a good one …

Lessons Learned…

7. Helping poor people is awfully hard

Lessons Learned …

8. Technology alone is never enough … Lee House … Technologies don’t spread

on their own. They need help. They ALWAYS need help.

Lessons Learned …

9. Mobilize talented people. If you do, you are 90 percent successful already.

(Laurie Kitch, Jane Wolfson, Dick Shade, Moffi Ta’Ama, Katy Ibrahim, Boukar Ousman, Georges Ntoukam, Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer)

Lessons Learned …

10. Accept it as your fate that you are a fund raiser and an awareness raiser.

WHAT NEXT? Can PICS bags work for Other Crops?

• Are PICS sacks effective against other pests on other crops? (Of course people were already trying them on other crops)

• Will PICS sacks prove COST-effective for other crops?

• Future question, given “yes” responses: Could users be persuaded to adopt them and the value chain developed?

As regards “Do PICS Sacks Work”

• What is the state of the art currently – what crops/crop products have PICS bags been tried with so far?

• What might be the problems?– Mold might be a problem aflatoxin?– Insects might develop anyway despite low oxygen– Insects might bore holes in the bags– Seeds might not germinate

The End

Special Thanks toLowell Hardin

Russ FreedPat Barnes-McConnell

Katy IbrahimJess Lowenberg-DeBoer

Dick ShadeLaurie Kitch

Moffi Ta-AmaGeorge Ntoukam

Venu MargamDieudonne Baributsa

Heather Fabries+

MANY more!

WOW!