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Principal investigator/Lead institution: Dr. Ousmane Coulibably, CERAAS/ISRA
Collaborating institutions: GBioS, University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin
Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria
ISRA, Senegal
INRAN, Niger
Works in: Benin, Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal

Project Overview

Cowpea is a strategic crop for income generation and food security in West Africa and exclusively grown by smallholder farmers. Cowpea production is characterized by low yield. The crop has important potentials for value addition through diversification of derived products and utilization, which is still unexploited in the sub-region.

Social, cultural and economic factors hindering or promoting cowpea production and marketing systems are poorly documented. This lack of information and unavailability of reliable data on each segment of the cowpea value chain hamper the design of interventions to develop competitive value chains with higher incomes and products for food and nutritional security. As a result, stakeholders along the cowpea value chains mainly farmers, women and youth are unable to take advantage of existing national and export markets.

In addition, there have been a number of projects and initiatives at national and regional levels, which were barely integrated and sustainable. This results in inefficient resource allocation and low investment in cowpea value chains. To tackle these challenges, this project is designed to ensure an inclusive and sustainable agricultural-led economic growth through the identification of sociocultural and/or economic motivators or barriers to cowpea utilization at various stages and scales within production and market systems in Benin, Nigeria, Niger and Senegal.

The project aims to identify cowpea data sources and gaps along the cowpea value chains in target countries. It is expected that all stakeholders in cowpea value chains in targeted countries and West Africa would benefit from the outputs and outcomes of this project.

Click here to download the Project Fact Sheet

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Cowpea Atlas Data