Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research

Final Report

Project Title: Science-driven and farmer-oriented insect pest management for cowpea agro-ecosystems in West Africa

Executive Summary

Cowpea is one of the most important grain legumes in West Africa, but its production remains threatened by insect pest which can severely reduce grain yields. To minimize their impact in cowpea cropping systems in Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria and redress yields, in this project we have been developing and deploying climate-resilient, environmentally friendly and economically profitable integrated pest management approaches and tools - easily implementable by women and men farmers. The project has been articulated around the following objectives: 1. Discovery objectives, to provide new knowledge on factors improving the performance of biocontrols and assess the pest status of emerging, climate-driven insect pests, along with the investigation into novel bio-pesticides. 2. Piloting objectives, to screen available or new biopesticides with potential to be commercialized by community-based groups and/or private sector operators, and to validate locally-specific IPM baskets. 3. Scaling objectives, to carry out mass-releases of biocontrol agents, and to scale out the community-based production of neem tea-bags. 4. Capacity development objectives, to implement training and educational programs at all levels, including farmer, technician and graduate training, and short-term attachments for researchers, to develop educational materials towards scaling of content, and to develop and validate ICT decision making tools.

The research approach has been anchored on seven pillars: i) assessment of ecological interactions between the target pest organism (the legume pod borer), the released exotic biocontrol agents, and the cultivated (cowpea) and wild host plants flowering both during the cropping season and during the dry season; ii) investigations of the in-field host finding capacity of the biocontrol agent Liragathis javana; iii) biodiversity studies targeting emerging pests such flower thrips, in order to establish early-warning and rapid response approaches; iv) screening of available and new isolates of entomopathogenic fungi to assess their efficacy on a range of cowpea pests, including those identified above as emerging ones; v) socio-economic adoption, gender and impact studies to get better insight into determinants influencing IPM decisions at the household level, and to flank the scaling activities (with regard to biocontrol agents and neem tea-bags) in Burkina Faso and Niger; vi) Sensitization campaigns at the locations where we carried out experimental (Nigeria) and mass releases (Burkina Faso and Niger) of hymenopteran parasitoids against the pod borer; vii) development and validation of novel communication, education and decision-making approaches and tools to empower low-literacy farmers to take their own decisions with regard to cowpea pest control.

Key achievements can be summarized as follows:

Biocontrol agents

A total of over 267,000 individual parasitoids as biocontrol agents against the pod borer were released during the duration of the project. So far, initial recovery rates from sentinel, unsprayed cowpea fields have been low, but this is not surprising just two years after the first releases. In Benin, where we released already some six years ago, we can well measure a sizeable reduction of the population of the pod borer of up to 86%. Damage scoring in the pilot release sites is correlated to this figure, with consistent figures of <10% of attacked pods. We are happy to report that the parasitoids have been reported as established in all three project countries, although it needs to be mentioned that this is really the northernmost expansion area of the pod borer, and hence dry season refugia for the parasitoids are less frequent than in moister agro-ecosystems in Benin. Also, to properly determine the parasitoid population level at this early stage, the sampling effort will go beyond the scope and funding available in the current project.

The host finding behavior of the parasitoid has been elucidated by the use of high quality video observations, coupled with chemical ecology investigating the range of volatiles emitted by healthy and attacked cowpea flowering structures.

Biodiversity assessment

Key achievements here demonstrate that the flower thrips Megalurothrips sjostedti is the most common thrips in the all agro-ecological zones, followed by Frankliniella shultzei and the leaf thrips Sericothrips adolfifriedrici. The latter was encountered more frequently and also with more severe symptoms during dry spells occurring during the rainy season, making it a good target organisms for future work assessing the impact of climate variability on pest distribution and incidence. We are very close of reporting a breakthrough with thrips identifications: from an area in the Centre Nord region, a single specimen of a putative exotic thrips species (tentatively determined as originating from Central America), never recorded before on the African continent, was observed for the first time.

Entomopathogenic fungi

We have been able to establish in our labs at IITA-Benin a mass rearing of Galleria mellonella, a model insect whose larvae are used to isolate entomopathogenic fungi and nematodes from conducive soils. So far, we have discovered 2 new strains from Benin, and one each from Burkina Faso and Nigeria. More soil samples are currently being collected around Ilorin in Nigeria for similar purposes. The entomopathogenic fungi are being characterized morphologically and molecularly. The strains are currently being sequenced at the MSU labs.

IPM approaches including socio-economic assessment

Overall, chemical pesticides gave the best results, but their impact was not significantly different for seeds damage by pod bugs than the other biopesticides. In exchanges with farmers during the demonstration experiments, they were well aware that chemical pesticides usually give better yields than biopesticides, but most of them were also aware of the negative side-effects of chemical pesticides on human health, and also their higher purchase price. Nevertheless, they would be happy to use biopesticides if these would be more easily available for purchase.

Due to the lack of financial capacity, women use more ecological measures in their small plots compared to men. There is also inequity in agricultural practices between men and women in terms of knowledge, use and where it is used in spite of the gender aware policies related to climate change.

Neem tea bag production

Three additional women cottage enterprises targeted in 2022 in the region of Maradi and Tahoua, with 33 persons including 30 women members of farmer organizations were trained on the process of making neem tea bags. The training was conducted from 8th to 10th April 2023 at three villages of Tunfafi, Naki Karhi and Elkolta. Considering the six neem cottage industries, the updated quantity for 2023 is estimated to 6589 neem tea bags. In total during the project duration, the women-led enterprises produced 15,989, of which 923 during 2,20, 3002 during 2021, 5525 during 2022, and 6539 for 2023 so far

Capacity development

We have been carrying out a whole range of capacity development activities, one of the most intensive endeavors in our project. In summary, we have reached 2005 farmers just in Niger for 2022, trained 33 women in the production of neem tea bags in three additional women-led cottage enterprises during the same year, hosted a number of HC co-PIs and technical staff for training on various aspects of rearing of biocontrol agents, 3 PhD students (2 from Burkina Faso and 1 from Niger) on the different topics of their theses, and carried out several biocontrol sensitization campaigns prior to or during the mass releases of the biocontrol agents.

Novel communication, education and decision-making approaches and tools

The Neem Tea Bag animation shown the use of neem as a natural insecticide to prevent post-harvest loss. The SAWBO Neem Tea Bag animation was created with the collaboration of the Innovation team in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The animation explains how to harvest, process, package and use neem tea bags as a natural insecticide to address insect pests and increase yield for smallholder farmers. https://sawbo-animations.org/1624. The animation aims to train women in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The video was completed on May 2022. The animation is currently in English, but we will work with other in country groups to translate the video into other local languages from Niger and Burkina with funds leveraged from other projects. The Management entity received a Mission “buy in” to promote this video across Niger and place it into French and four local languages: Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, and Zarma. The Management entity is currently doing a pre-and post-intervention study in collaboration with the University of Maradi to look at the impact of this animation.

We have extensively tested the Farmer Interface Application FIA-niebe (for the pod bug Clavigralla tomentosicollis) in Niger, Sept 15-24 2022, with cowpea farmers, extension agents, and graduate students of the University of Maradi. Major lessons learned during these testing and validation session are given below.

Lessons learned so far:

i) the FIA niebe digital advisory is easy to use;

ii) the number of plants to be inspected can be reduced from 6 to 4 per station to reduce scouting time and effort (this has already been implemented in the most recent version)

iii) need for color coding for pest presence/attack symptoms (e.g., green for uninfested organs, red for attacked organs) (this is currently being implemented);

iv) needs to address technical issues around internet connectivity for voice commands and stability of GPS captures.

Project Partners

Dr. Manuele Tamò

(PI), Principal Scientist – Entomologist, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Cotonou, Benin m.tamo@cgiar.org tel +229 95 96 13 06

Dr. David Mota-Sanchez

(US-co-PI) Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing, MI, USA, motasanc@msu.edu, tel +1 517 353-3435

Dr. Julia Bello-Bravo

(US-co-PI), Assistant Professor, Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing, MI USA, bellobra@msu.edu, tel +1 217-979-7967

Dr. Fousséni Traore

(HC-co-PI), Entomologist, Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso foussnitraore@gmail.com, tel +226 76 65 94 22

Mr. Laouali Amadou

(HC-co-PI), Entomologist, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique du Niger (INRAN), Maradi, Niger amadoulaouali@gmail.com, tel +227 96 33 75 54

Prof. Ibrahim Baoua

(HC-co-PI), Entomologist, University of Maradi (UM), Maradi, Niger baoua.ibrahim@gmail.com, tel +227 90 42 35 73

Dr. James Ojo

(HC-co-PI), Entomologist – Applied Ecologist, Kwara State University (KWASU), Ilorin, Nigeria jamesadebayoojo@gmail.com, +234 803 814 75 42

Project Goals and Objectives

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improving rural livelihoods and food and nutrition security in the Sahel, Sudan and savannah regions of Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria, by developing and deploying climate smart agricultural technologies and innovations particularly targeting integrated pest management.

The specific objectives are:

1. Discovery objectives

1.1 Assess the ecological interactions regulating populations of the pod borer and the released biocontrol agents on alternative host plants and cowpea crops throughout the year, over multiple years, and in relation to climatic variables.

1.2 Assess the pest status of emerging, climate-driven insect pests, and the potential for their sustainable control.

2. Piloting objectives

2.1 Screen fungal biopesticides against emerging and invasive pest, with potential to be commercialized by community-based groups and/or private sector operators, including innovative pilot production and delivery systems.

2.2 Validate various IPM baskets including mixtures of bio-pesticides, intercropping and tolerant varieties at selected pilot locations in at least one of the HCs.

3. Scaling objectives

3.1 Scale out the biocontrol agents against the pod borer, relying on mass-rearing in the respective national labs.

3.2 Scale out the community-based production of neem tea-bags piloted in Niger during the initial activities.

4. Capacity development objectives

4.1 Implement training and educational programs at all levels, including farmer, technician and graduate training, and short-term attachments for researchers.

4.2 Develop educational materials towards scaling of content

4.3 Develop and validate ICT decision making tools

Overview of Activities

The following activities have been successfully carried out during the duration of the project:

i) Assessment of ecological interactions between the legume pod borer Maruca vitrata, the released exotic biocontrol agents, focusing on the hymenopteran parasitoid Liragathis javana in particular, and the cultivated (cowpea) and wild host plants flowering both during the cropping season and during the dry season. For this, we have used Google Earth images and ground inspections to identify hydromorphic areas (e.g. near water bodies) susceptible to host leguminous plants including shrubs and trees bearing important residual population of the pod borer during the dry season. These plants have been the target for mass releases of the biocontrol agents in new areas of Burkina Faso and Niger, and for initial experimental releases in Nigeria (FY20-21). In previous release areas in Burkina and Niger, carried out under the previous phase of the project, we have subsequently assessed the presence of the released biocontrol agents in relation to flowering pattern of the plants, and climatic data gathered from the national meteorological services (FY20-23). Similar observations will have been carried out on unsprayed cowpea plots (e.g. our own demonstration plots) and surrounding leguminous plants such as Sesbania spp. Standard sampling methodology includes the geo-referenced collection of 20 inflorescences per plant (shrub, tree), or 50 flowers/pods per field (depending on the plant phenology) for herbaceous legumes such as cowpea and Sesbania spp. At least 5 wild host plants and/or 5 cowpea fields per location have been sampled. The samples have been incubated under lab conditions until formation of the pupae of either the parasitoids or the pod borer. Emerged adult parasitoids and pod borers have been stored for morphological (IITABenin) and molecular (MSU) identification. The data collected so far constitute a robust basis for understanding the population dynamics of the target pest and its biocontrol agents, in relation to climatic variabilities and environmental/landscape factors such as presence of alternative host plants. This will subsequently allow making predictions (e.g. through modeling) about the dispersal and pest population regulating potential of the exotic biocontrol agents. This investigation integrated a PhD student from Burkina Faso (female), the thesis is still ongoing and will be completed with support from other financial sources.

ii) The investigation of the host finding capacity of the biocontrol agent Liragathis javana, which prefers parasitizing the pod borer on herbaceous legumes such as cowpea and Sesbania spp., was initially studied using field cages which were set up both in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, using an elaborated protocol involving a differential of rustical and improved cowpea varieties (FY20-21). The aim here was to understand the mechanisms underlying the host location, starting by investigating the visual location of the host plant (visual cues) in choice and no-choice test arenas under field conditions. However, and unfortunately, contrary to our initial observations in screenhouse experiments, parasitoids released in the cages remained on the screen covering the walls for a few hours (probably attracted by some screen properties such as texture or static charge) before eventually moving to the cowpea plants and attack caterpillars of the pod borer. This must have passed unnoticed in previous experiments where we only assessed parasitism on caged cowpea plants in the screenhouse, which did not include detailed behavioral observations. While this might be ok for assessing parasitization, it is rather useless for behavioral observations where the maximum observation time is 30 minutes, and implies that the parasitoid has just a few minutes before moving to the cowpea plant and start foraging for the host larva. Fortunately, subsequent detailed behavioral studies could be carried out in the open field coupled with close up video observation on unsprayed on-station plots (FY21-22).

Once the plant is selected by visual cues, the parasitoid is expected to start locating suitable host larvae by long and short range plant volatile cues, which the plant might emit with or without the attack of the pod borer. Such have been trapped in the field using portable headspace analysis equipment both in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, and subjected to GC-MS analysis to identify the major components (FY21-23). The focus of the work is to isolate cowpea plant volatiles from undamaged and damaged flowering structures, in order to find olfactic cues guiding the host finding behavior of the parasitoid L. javana.

iii) Biodiversity and ecological studies targeting emerging pests such as flower thrips in order to establish early-warning and rapid response approaches. These pests are just an example of emerging pests we have noted in the past years at different locations, so we have kept our eyes open for other emerging and invasive pests as they appear. In fact, there have already been isolated reports that the invasive fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) had been observed attacking cowpea at some locations. Given the habit of intercropping cowpea with cereals susceptible to be attacked by the fall armyworm (particularly maize and sorghum), we have monitored this issue very closely. During FY20-22, we have monitored farmer cowpea plots as well as our experimental, unsprayed plots to assess the population dynamics of these pests in relation to climatic parameters and cowpea phenology. Additionally, we have inspected patches of wild legumes (herbaceous, shrubs and trees) to detect the presence of these pests off-field and off-season in conjunction with the first activity. At the same time, immature life stages of the pests have been incubated to detect the presence of internal parasitoids, while moribund or dead adults and immature stages have also been incubated separately on wet filter paper to monitor the presence of entomopathogenic organisms, particularly fungi. All organisms collected have been preserved for morphological and molecular identification as appropriate (FY21-23). Part of this study is being carried out as a PhD thesis carried out by a female graduate from Burkina Faso.

iv) New strains of entomopathogenic fungi have been isolated de novo from soils collected in different agro-ecologies in Burkina Faso, Benin and Nigeria (FY21-23), using a slightly modified methodology of the Galleria melonella bait technique. The new isolates have been preserved for morphological and molecular identification as appropriate (FY23). Those tentatively identified as belonging to Beauveria bassiana have undergone preliminary screening for efficacy on the pod borer M. vitrata and pod sucking bugs C. tomentosicollis assays.

v) The scaling activities (with regard to biocontrol agents and neem tea-bags) has been flanked by socio-economic adoption, gender and impact studies in Burkina Faso (thanks to a cross-cutting theme grant on gender) and Niger. In Niger, a baseline survey has been conducted at the beginning of the project at selected project locations (interventions) and some adjacent communities (noninterventions) to determine the benchmark values of some performance indicators such as the use of improved varieties, use of chemical pesticides and biopesticides, the perceived key production constraints, average cowpea yields, and gender-sensitive socio-economic values to be determined. For selecting the sample size, a sample proportional to size of the target beneficiaries has been determined based on the final selection of intervention areas and type of interventions. However, sample size has been guided by the need to have enough statistical power to capture changes in target indicators and their desired disaggregation (FY21-22). During the last six month of the project in the same communities where baseline information was collected, and endline survey will allow measuring of changes in key performance indicators in both project intervention sites and nonintervention ones. Putting in all together a double difference is currently being calculated to measure project initial outcomes such as adoption status of the bio-pesticides, food security and/or poverty status of adopters compared to non-users of approaches and tools promoted by the project (FY23). Part of these studies have been carried out as PhD theses by a female graduate student. In Burkina Faso, the cross-cutting theme grant has been investigating the role of women and men in integrated pest management (IPM) decision making in Burkina Faso to provide baseline data for further understanding the adoption and impact among women compared to men. Women’s important role in agriculture and decision-making in allocating financial assets warrant targeting them for understanding their role and exposure in IPM, and how IPM innovations and approaches can reach, benefit and perhaps create an enabling environment to help women empower themselves. Gender integration in IPM strategies involves identifying women’s knowledge and perceptions of and interest about IPM as well as the associated risks, vulnerability, and constraints to using IPM practices and technologies. To be inclusive with women in IPM decision-making in Burkina Faso, it is essential to understand some factors important for adopting any IPM strategy; access to land, labor, credit, and understanding how culture, tradition (social recognition), attitude/perception towards health, food safety and nutritional consequence of pesticide usage, and practices influence agriculture.

vi) Sensitization campaigns at the release sites have been carried out prior to the experimental (Nigeria, FY20-21) and mass releases (Burkina Faso and Niger, FY20-21; Nigeria, FY22-23) of biocontrol agents against the cowpea pod borer. During the previous phase of the project we had already tested prototype sensitization materials, which we have slightly refined for this project. In fact, we have developed ‘wooden powerpoint presentations’, drawings made by local artists depicting in very simple and understandable terms the basic principles of biocontrol, including the simplified biology of the pest and the biocontrol agents, and their interactions with the cowpea crops and wild vegetation. The drawings are printed on large posters in landscape format and pinned/glued onto plywood boards which are placed on tripods and interchanged like slides. We have also provided digital versions of the same slide shows with comments in main local languages, which have been mainly showed on laptop screens as powerpoint projectors are rarely available in rural areas. Sensitization campaigns have been deployed to the farming communities with the active involvement of local and traditional authorities, extension agents and national plant protection officers.

vii) Novel communication, education and decision-making approaches and tools have been developed and validated during the course of the project. As per original plans, we had scheduled to carry out focus group research in order to determine the most effective approaches for the development of educational materials (e.g., local language variant animations or videos or printed materials) which was to be demonstrated and disseminated during the campaigns. However, due to the COVID-19 closure of borders and restrictions on international travels during the first two years of the project, this could not be materialized. Instead, a new animation video produced by Scientific Animations without Borders (SAWBO) has been prepared with the collaborators at MSU and Niger (INRAN/UM), with the objective to educate farmers, biopesticide producers and the society at large about the neem tea-bag production, use, and their benefits. The video, initially in English, will soon be translated into French and Hausa, the main local language spoken in Niger, with the option of translating it into other main local languages of the subregion.

To provide low-literate farmers with a robust pest management decision-making tool, have built upon the prototype of the Farmer Interface Application (FIA) developed under a BMGF scoping grant, which was left uncompleted and non-operational at the field level, but had provided some useful insights on the way forward. To make the new FIA fully functional, we have added a proper scouting protocol through an algorithm based on real GPS coordinates, which determines random data collecting points (FY20-21). The FIA has also become fully operational in term of communication through internet connectivity (FY21-22). This has become imperative because of the move towards voice recognition and voice commands, which require internet connectivity (FY23).

Accomplishments by objective

1.1 Assess the ecological interactions regulating populations of the pod borer and the released biocontrol agents on alternative host plants and cowpea crops throughout the year, over multiple years, and in relation to climatic variables.

This activity was carried out in all three countries, although at different levels of intensity. In Burkina Faso, soon after the first releases of the biocontrol agent Liragathis javana, we were able to recover adult parasitoids by incubating parasitized pod borer caterpillars collected from cowpea fields near release sites, mainly around Bama and Banfora. Similarly in Niger, we could recover few specimens of the parasitoids from unsprayed cowpea crops close to experimental release sites at Maradi. In Nigeria, we have continued to find few specimens of the biocontrol agent Liragathis javana on herbaceous legume (Sesbania sp.) during the sampling activities, which supports observations from other countries where we have carried out releases. The fact that we have not been able to recover the biocontrol agents in greater numbers is mainly due to the low population levels of the host, the pod borer M. vitrata. This is in fact good news, meaning that the biocontrol agent is actively capable to keep the pest population under control, with observed reductions of populations up to 86% as observed in previous releases sites in Benin and Burkina Faso. The most important fact is that we have been able for the first time to recover the biocontrol agents in all countries, and this is very encouraging.

However, this activity has demonstrated that it can be affected by climatic factors in marginal areas of the pod borer distribution. In fact, our efforts to detect the presence of the parasitoids during the long dry season did not yield any results during the 2021 and 2022 long dry seasons. The very harsh conditions which prevailed during the dry season in the target regions of our HC were not conducive to the survival of the pod borer, hence their population remained under the detectable level. At these population levels of the pod borer, biological control agents will not be able to develop in sufficient numbers to be detectable by random sampling. However, they might be able to survive on some patches of wild vegetation, particularly in hydromorphic areas which are sometimes of difficult access, but to detect them at these population levels would require a sampling effort which cannot be supported by the project. It needs to be re-emphasized that the pod borer Maruca vitrata is at the edge of its ecological expansion zone in the agro-ecological areas targeted by the project, and often the invasions of the cowpea fields occur by staggered migration from the southern zones. In any case, the fact that we were able to intercept biocontrol agents during the cropping seasons means that they are able to adapt to the seasonal pattern of the pest and can still be efficient in controlling their populations. To get more clarity about these ecological interactions we will need multiple years of data to gather evidence of the underlying mechanisms, but this might be beyond the scope of the present project.

With regard to the investigation on the host finding behavior of the main parasitoid Liragathis javana, after some initial difficulties we are happy to report excellent progress. Based on observations during the experimental releases in the screenhouse under screen-covered walk-in cages, we had set up field experiments using the same cages using a differential of cowpea varieties and wild species, in the attempt to assess the host preferences of foraging adult parasitoids. As mentioned earlier, contrary to our initial observations, parasitoids released in the cages remained on the screen covering the walls for a few hours (probably attracted by some screen properties such as texture or static charge) before eventually moving to the cowpea plants and attack caterpillars of the pod borer. This must have passed unnoticed in previous experiments where we only assessed parasitism on caged cowpea plants in the screenhouse, which did not include detailed behavioral observations. Instead, behavioral studies could be carried out in the open field coupled with close up video observations. Thereby, the parasitoid was observed for the first time to use its ovipositor to drill through the cowpea flower and probing pod borer caterpillars inside it. This has been captured in a stunning close-up video clip immortalizing the female L. javana probing through the flower and parasitizing the M. vitrata caterpillar: Watch here

Subsequent work has focused on elucidating cowpea plant volatiles from undamaged and damaged flowering structures, in order to find olfactic cues guiding the host finding behavior of the parasitoid L. javana. These studies were initially carried out in 2021 in the field in Nigeria in close collaboration with our HC-co-PI, because of the proximity to the IITA-Benin labs which facilitates the exchange of trapped volatiles and also capacity building of the KWASU staff in chemical ecology. Based on the success of the work in Nigeria, similar studies were carried out in Burkina Faso (Bama and Banfora) in 2022.

Volatiles collected both in Nigeria and Burkina Faso have been analyzed using the new GC-MS equipment at IITA-Benin. A number of compounds have been identified both from undamaged and damaged cowpea flowers. Among the compounds already identified, we can report 1) Phenyl ethyl alcohol; 2) o-Xylene; 3) Mesitylene; 4) Hexadecane (C16); 5) Eicosane (C20); 6) p-Xylene; 7) Nonane; 8) 2-Ethylhexyl 2-ethylhexanoate and 9) Decanedioic acid, bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester. However, several more compounds of interest for our studies are currently under identification based on available standards.

Within the framework of a PhD study by a female graduate study currently visiting IITA-Benin and leveraging funds from other sources to complete her work, olfactometric observations are being carried out to identify which part of cowpea plant is involved in attracting Liragathis javana. Preliminary results are showing that L. javana females are significantly more attracted to volatiles emitted by flowers and pods infested by M. vitrata larvae than to intact organs and M. vitrata caterpillars alone.

1.2 Assess the pest status of emerging, climate-driven insect pests, and the potential for their sustainable control.

This study was restricted to Burkina Faso and integrated as a PhD study by a female graduate student. During the 2021 cropping season, 16 experimental fields were established in Bala (involving 3 farmers), Dinderesso/Nasso (involving 4 farmers), Bama (Vallée du Kou) (involving 4 farmers) and Farako-Bâ (involving 5 farmers). Field were monitored starting with the onset of flowering, which coincides with the activity of flower thrips. Overall, population levels of both flower thrips and pod were low, regardless of treatment. On unsprayed plots, an average of 1.28 and 1.07 M. vitrata larvae per plant were found on unsprayed and neem treated plots, respectively (as compared to over 4 per plant in the recent past). Yields from pooled data over the 16 plots were of 1.31 and 1.80kg/plot for unsprayed and neem treated plots, respectively.

During 2022, flower thrips were collected from the Centre-Nord, Centre Est, Centre Ouest and Cascades regions, from flowering cowpea fields, surrounding leguminous host plants, and prevalent weeds. At least 100 cowpea flowers were collected from 5 different fields in each of the regions. The samples collected from leguminous host plant and weeds was variables depending on their presence in the area. Samples were sorted and kept in 90% alcohol for identification. During 2022 and 2023 the PhD student visited IITABenin for learning basic techniques in thrips identification using standard available keys, but also accessing more recent digital keys and comparing specimens using a digital binocular microscope. The flower thrips Megalurothrips sjostedti was the most common thrips in the all agro-ecological zones, followed by Frankliniella shultzei and the leaf thrips Sericothrips adolfifriedrici. The latter was encountered more frequently and also with more severe symptoms during dry spells occurring during the rainy season, making it a good target organisms for future work assessing the impact of climate variability on pest distribution and incidence. We are very close of reporting a breakthrough with thrips identifications: from an area in the Centre Nord region, a single specimen of a putative exotic thrips species, never recorded before on the African continent, was observed. Unfortunately, attempts to extract DNA from this single specimen did not yield enough quantity and quality to be further processed for sequencing. In the meantime the Centre Nord region is not accessible for security reasons due to insurgence in the country, so we might have to wait for confirming this discovery.

An additional experiment was set up to assess ecological roles of two main flower thrips in three different regions of Burkina Faso. Two contrasting cowpea varieties including improved and wild (whereby the pistil is longer than the stamens in the latter) were infested with either Megalurothrips sjostedti or Frankliniella shultzei from three agroecological zone. Preliminary results indicate that thrips from Southern sudanian zone are the most aggressive, while those from Northern sudanian zone are less damaging in addition being important pollinators.

2.1 Screen fungal biopesticides against emerging and invasive pest, with potential to be commercialized by community-based groups and/or private sector operators, including innovative pilot production and delivery systems.

Initial searches for new fungal biopesticides in Burkina Faso did not yield any new strains, so we decided to focus entirely on refining the Galleria mellonella bait methodology to identify new strains. The methodology was first tested and validated at IITA-Benin with soils form different agro-ecologies, and has been further used to screen soils from Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Basically, we are collecting soil from different locations hosting different types of vegetation (cowpea crops, wild host plants), and we will expose 2nd and 3rd larval instars of G. mellonella to the moistened soil, and incubate them after 8 days to recover sporulation of entomopathogenic fungi from the cadavers. This method is much more specific and targeted than the crude isolation of micro-organisms from the soil. Our target organism is Beauveria bassiana, which is one of the most versatile and potent bio-pesticides. The entomopathogenic fungi are being characterized morphologically and molecularly. So far, we have discovered 2 new strains from Benin, and one each from Burkina Faso and Nigeria. The strains are currently being sequenced at the MSU labs.

As a precursor for farmer demonstration trials, on-station experiments at the INRAN station in Maradi, Niger, were carried out to assess the performance of various biopesticides. Apart from the chemical pesticide control which gave a marginal better yield, the neem tea bag treatment allowed a reduction of insect pest infestations from 54.4 to 69.12% and a yield of 363.94 kg/ha. Treatments with the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (Bb115) provided by IITA-Benin and the biopesticide Eradicoat gave comparable lower yields ranging from 209.87 to 203.67 kg/ha. Thus, the use of biopesticides made from Neem seed (neem tea bag) continues to show its advantage over year and constitutes a more ecological alternative for the control of insect pests of cowpea in Niger.

A second study in Niger assessed the potential of different biopesticides on-farm, in some 16 villages in the Maradi region. Plots treated with chemical pesticides were the least infested compared to the control, but comparable to the other biopesticide treatments. They allowed to obtain an average yield 2.7 times higher compared to the control with respectively 403.84 kg/ha and 328.45 kg/ha for the variety UAM 09 1055-6 and IT90K-372-1-2. The treatment with the aqueous extract of Neem seeds (neem tea bag) gave yields 1.5 times higher than the control for both varieties. However, Neem oil and B. bassiana treatments were comparable with yields 1.61 and 1.65 times higher compared to the control respectively for the two varieties. The main insects recorded during this on-farm trial were the pod sucking bug C. tomentosicollis, the pod borer M. vitrata and the thrips M. sjostedji. The density of C. tomentosicollis varied significantly between treatments for all varieties. Thrips infestations also varied between treatments. When considering the two varieties, the infestations were 27 to 80 times less important in the plots treated with synthetic chemical pesticide and biopesticides compared to the untreated plots. Chemical pesticide and biopesticide treatment did not show any significant difference among themselves with regard to pods attacked by the pod borer M. vitrata and pod sucking bugs C. tomentosicollis, but yielded significantly better results than the unsprayed treatment.

In addition to the above reporting for the semi-annual report, we have now elaborated and tested a modified protocol for the use of the Galleria mellonella baiting method to assess the presence, diversity and distribution of fungal entomopathogens attacking the pod borer Maruca vitrata. Basically, we are collecting soil from different locations hosting different types of vegetation (cowpea crops, wild host plants), and we will expose 2nd and 3rd larval instars of M. vitrata to the moistened soil, and incubate them after 8 days to recover sportulation of entomopathogenic fungi from the cadavers. This method is much more specific and targeted than the crude isolation of micro-organisms from the soil. The entomopathogenic fungi are being characterized morphologically and molecularly. Our target organism is Beauveria bassiana, which is one of the most versatile and potent bio-pesticides. Right now we are collecting soils from various endemic zones in Benin, where we have higher chances to find entomopathogens than in Sahelian countries.

At MSU, research has been focusing on working with surrogate species and compounds from neem. We had found that 100% of larvae that survived the neem treatment at 3.16 ppm were able to successfully complete the pupal stage. In contrast, only 59% of the larvae from the susceptible strain reached the pupal stage. Additionally, 39% of the resistant pupae reached the adult stage (moths). In contrast, only 8.4 % of the susceptible strain reached the adult stage. In the context of this research, at the past Global Convening 2023 we discussed with member of project team the risk of resistance of pod borers to neem. We had compared our surrogate pest and pod borers and had determined that the main factor that intervene in resistance are: number of generations, lack of crop rotation, intensive use of synthetic insecticides, initial frequency of resistance alleles, migration, IPM and alternate hosts. The result of the analysis showed a low risk of resistance development of pod borers to neem; however, in areas of high infestation and intensive use of synthetic insecticides the possibility of resistance to neem might be higher, but less than other lepidopteran pests.

2.2 Validate various IPM baskets including mixtures of bio-pesticides, intercropping and tolerant varieties at selected pilot locations in at least one of the HCs.

This activity was scheduled to take place in 2022 and was mainly carried out in Niger, with some limited work in Burkina Faso.

In the Maradi region, the study was conducted in 12 villages of the departments of Madarounfa Aguié and Guidan Roumdji

The summary results of pest-inflicted damage are summarized in the below Table 1.

Table 1: damage scores on seeds attacked by pod borers and pod sucking bugs as induced by different control approaches

As expected, the chemical pesticide gave overall best results, but was not significantly different for seeds damage by pod bugs than the other biopesticides. This confirms previous on-farm observations in Niger, whereby neem seed extracts and neem oil performed slightly lower than the synthetic pesticide also in terms of yields.

A second demonstration trial was set up in in the region of Zinder, in three (3) villages of the department of Mirriah namely: Falki Babba, Hotoro and Bilmari located at 4 km, 6 km and 3 km, respectively, from Mirriah.

Here, under comparatively higher insect pest pressure than in Maradi, the chemical pesticide produced significantly higher yields irrespective of the village. The three biopesticides, neem oil, neem seed extract and the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (BB) gave lower but still acceptable yields, compared to the unsprayed controls (Temoin). In exchanges with farmers during the demonstration experiments, they were well aware that chemical pesticides usually give better yields than biopesticides, but most of them were also aware of the negative side-effects of chemical pesticides on human health, and also their higher purchase price. Nevertheless, they would be happy to use biopesticides if these would be more easily available for purchase. In fact, a sensitization campaign was carried out to explain pros and cons of pesticide use. The campaign was done from 22nd April to 02 May 2023 and concerned 20 villages of Maradi and Zinder regions and from 15 to 17 May 2023 in Tahoua Region. A total of 2005 people (including 500 in the Zinder. 756 in the Maradi region and 599 in Tahoua region) were sensitized about the risk of chemical pesticide and the beneficial effect of biopesticides.

More detailed results are available from the comprehensive unedited report submitted by INRAN Maradi: Annual Report Doc

In Burkina Faso, demonstration plots were set up in two villages: Sissalia and Matourkou (BoboDioulasso), involving six women, three in Sissalia and three in Matourkou. The purpose was to study the density of population the main of insects (thrips and Maruca) in cowpea field. At the level of each woman, four plots of 10 m x 10 m corresponding to the four treatments were designed:

T0 = Untreated control;

T1 = Plot treated with aqueous extract of neem seeds;

T2 = Plot treated with neem oil;

T3 = This treatment was not planned but we added it so that the women would appreciate it. For this treatment, the plots were treated with the recommended dose of 1l/ha of the insecticide K-Optimal (Lambda Cyhalothrin 15g/l + Acetamiprid 20g/l).

As seen from both Table 2 and 3, neem oil was as potent as the chemical sprays in controlling the pod borer (both in terms of number of caterpillars per treatment and damaged pods), a bit less efficient against flower thrips but this is expected due to the volatile nature of thrips. Neem seed extract were somehow less efficient than observed in Niger, but it must be noted that the M. vitrata population in Burkina Faso was consistently higher because of the significantly wetter conditions in the field.

This activity also comprised socio-economic studies which can be summarized as follows: In Burkina Faso, women were found to know and use climate smart agroecological practices with respect to soil management more exclusively on the family farms. In contrast, these practices are deprioritized in their small plots as they independently manage and usually gain cash income from. As for Pest Management, due to lack of financial capacity, women use more ecological measures in their small plots compare to men. In addition, the use of these is punctual and immediate. The study thus reveals the inequity in agricultural practices between men and women in terms of knowledge, use and where it is used in spite of the gender aware policies related to climate change of the country.

In Niger, in the framework of a PhD study, preliminary results indicate that, among agro-ecological approaches, biological control and biopesticides are the ones frequently practices by the farmers (sample size of 675 farming households in Maradi, Zinder and Tahoua) with 39.2%, together with organic manure and household waste as water and soil fertility management approaches (84.3% and 37.4%, respectively). The use of improved varieties is more common in Zinder (66.2%). It is therefore important to better characterize these approaches for designing proper scaling and adoption strategies.

3.1 Scale out the biocontrol agents against the pod borer, relying on mass-rearing in the respective national labs.

The establishment of permanent colony rearing in our HCs national labs could not be achieved due to unexpected technical difficulties. In fact, during the long dry season, the conditions for keeping rearing colonies of the host insect, the pod borer M. vitrata, cannot be maintained in simple air-conditioned rooms without additional and humidity temperature controls. The optimum conditions for mating and oviposition of the pod borer are 26 C and 70-80% RH, which are very difficult to maintain in HC labs over sustained period. Hence, after trying different configurations during the first years of the project, it was decided it would be far more expedite and less expensive to produce all natural enemies needed for mass releases through the IITA-Benin central rearing facilities which are purpose-built to meet these stringent conditions. However, during the main rainy season, these conditions could recently be attained over constant periods in most HC labs, and maintenance rearing colonies of parasitoids could hence be established, which were used mainly for ecological and behavioral studies. INRAN Maradi has been spearheading this effort, details of the rearing success and related pictures are given in their unedited report: Annual Report Doc 

The detailed numbers of released parasitoids are given in Table 4 below. To date, a total in excess of 267’000 parasitoids have been released from the time of a BMGF scoping grant in 2017, through the initial phase of the project in Benin and Burkina Faso, and until the end of the main project in June 2023.

3.2 Scale out the community-based production of neem tea-bags piloted in Niger during the initial activities.

This activity was initiated in Niger under the initial phase of the project.

Three women cottage enterprises targeted in 2022 in the region of Maradi and Tahoua, with 33 persons including 30 women members of farmer organizations were trained on the process of making neem tea bags. The training was conducted from 8th to 10th April 2023 at three villages of Tunfafi, Naki Karhi and Elkolta. Details are given under 4.1 on capacity development.

The newly established cottage industries produced additional 644 neem tea bags and have a stock of more than 200 kg neem kernel that will be processed during the coming rainy season (starting July 2023). Considering the six neem cottage industries the updated quantity for 2023 is estimated to 6589 neem tea bags. The quantities produced so far by individual enterprises are summarized in Table 5. The number of tea bags sold so far might appear low, but sales will mainly occur at the onset of the cropping season which will start with the rains in July.

In total during the project duration, the women-led enterprises produced 15,989, of which 923 during 2,20, 3002 during 2021, 5525 during 2022, and 6539 for 2023 so far.

4.1 Implement training and educational programs at all levels, including farmer, technician and graduate training, and short-term attachments for researchers.

This is one of the most reporting-intensive activities in our project. Due to the size limitation in this report, we will just summarize major achievements. Details can be found in unedited HC’s reports which have been submitted separately. Due to COVID-19 restrictions in the first two years of the project, training activities have been limited to respect country rules. In Niger for instance, the first training of neem-tea bag producers could only be given to a total of 6 women from the 3 established enterprises. Training topics included the identification of insect pests in cowpea; methods of pest control with emphasis on biopesticides including the aqueous extract of neem grains; steps of its preparation and its spraying in the field; agricultural entrepreneurship; assembling and operating the mechanized mill including simple maintenance. This session was followed in 2021 by a group training of 14 persons including 9 farmers, 3 facilitators and 2 students who were trained in topics related to pest management for on-farm field demonstration trials.

A farmer awareness campaign was carried out in 2022 and concerned 20 villages of Maradi, Zinder and Tahoua Regions. A total of 2005 people were sensitized about the risk of chemical pesticide and the beneficial effect of biopesticides. Details of the gender-disaggregated participation are given in Table 6 below as an example for the Tahoua region.

Three women cottage enterprises targeted in 2022 in the region of Maradi and Tahoua were trained on the process of making neem tea bags. The training was conducted from 8th to 10th April 2023 at three villages of Tunfafi, Naki Karhi and Elkolta.

Some 33 persons including 30 women members of farmer organizations were trained on the neem production process at each site.

A kit of processing equipment was offered by the project to each of the three new units trained to support them in their new mission. The kit consists of one (1) milling machine with its spare parts, 2 metallic basins, 10 metal trays, 8 sieves of 0.5 mm, 1 tarpaulin of 3 m x 3 m in area, 2 plastic buckets of 120 liters. These materials were publicly handed to the participants by the INRAN administrator in the presence of a representative of the agricultural service who participated in the training.

Biocontrol sensitization campaigns were carried out in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, at locations where biocontrol agents have been released, and were attended by 69 and 30 farmers, respectively.

Nigeria: we were happy to host our co-PI Dr Ojo for a 12 days recycling training at our facilities in IITABenin, Cotonou. Main focus of the training was to get acquainted with new methodologies of rearing the pod borer Maruca vitrata and its parasitoids Liragathis javana and Phanerotoma syleptae, together with observation on host finding behavior and installation of pheromone traps in the field. He also got acquainted with new equipment in our chemical ecology and molecular analytics labs. On his way back to Ilorin, he carried some 10’000 parasitoids, covered by all regulatory paperwork, for experimental releases and colony initiation. This training was followed by on-site training provided by our consultant in chemical ecology to KWASU, to give hands-on demonstrations of volatile collecting methodologies and use of pheromone traps.

Degree training (PhD and MSc only)

Burkina Faso: 1 Phd, 2 MSc, all female

Niger: 1 Phd, 2 MSc, all female

4.2 Develop educational materials towards scaling of content

Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) focuses on the creation of educational materials on topics related to agriculture, health, women empowerment, and peace and justice. Insect pests are a constant threat for farmers. But some benign and sustainable alternatives are possible to minimize losses. The Neem Tea Bag animation shown the use of neem as a natural insecticide to prevent post-harvest loss. The SAWBO Neem Tea Bag animation was created with the collaboration of the Innovation team in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The animation explains how to harvest, process, package and use neem tea bags as a natural insecticide to address insect pests and increase yield for smallholder farmers. Watch video here. The animation aims to train women in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The video was completed on May 2022. The animation is currently in English, but we will work with other in country groups to translate the video into other local languages from Niger and Burkina.

In 2023, Dr. Bello-Bravo worked with Dr. Anne Lutomia on designing and developing a survey instrument for pre- and post-tests on IPM awareness and practices for cowpea farmers. The survey instrument addresses questions related to the content of the neem tea bag video. The questionnaire will be used eventually in Niger. The instrument for the research study was created to measure the knowledge of participants related to the use of neem as a natural insecticide.

The Management entity received a Mission “buy in” to promote this video across Niger and place it into French and four local languages: Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, and Zarma. The Management entity is currently doing a pre-and post-intervention study in collaboration with the University of Maradi to look at the impact of this animation.

4.3 Develop and validate ICT decision making tools

The Farmer Interface Application FIA is a smartphone App on Android guiding farmers to scout their cowpea fields to monitor and detect the attack by the brown pod bug Clavigralla tomentosicollis.

Integrates a scouting algorithm guiding the farmer with voice commands (French for the moment, translations into local languages are planned on leveraged funds from other projects) how to move randomly in the field and to check a number of crop plants, inspect them for pests (or damage symptoms), and press the right symbol to record presence/absence of the pest.

FIA instructs the farmer to collect GPS coordinates (through integrated voice commands) of the contour points of her field;

It calculates the size of the diagonals of the field and divides them into 5 equal section;

Within each of the 5 sections scouting points are determined at random;

The distance to the scouting points is converted into steps depending on the size of the farmer (which is entered at the login screen) and a voice command is prompting the farmer to move x number of steps along the diagonal. Once the farmer is on the sampling spot, she will inspect the four plants around her for the presence of the pest. Current version only requires presence/absence of the pest, further versions will allow more precise numerical inputs, including egg masses and juvenile stages. Damage symptoms are not always a clear indication of the presence of the pod sucking bugs, e.g., the pod weevil can do very similar damage to the pods. Once the data for the first sampling station are entered, the farmer will be prompted by voice to move x steps to the next sampling spot, and carry out the same observations. Some 5 sampling stations on each diagonal will be visited, for a total of 10 sampling points at 4 plants per field, giving it a total sampling size of 40 plants. This will allow FIA, independently from being connected to the internet, to calculate an intervention threshold and allow the farmer to make an informed decision about protective measures.

Voice commands: The voice robot we are currently using is a cloud-based intelligent agent capable of conducting a conversation with the farmer (for the moment in French only) for guiding FIA actions such as the scouting. It can initiate the conversation with the farmer, understand her/his answers, and guide through the use of the FIA app. This will also enable FIA to capture some demographic characteristics of the respondent such as name, age, sex, location, and also to register her/his consent to use the data collected by FIA. The open-source version of WebKit Speech is currently used for voice recognition, while ChatScript Server is being used for modeling the mechanisms underlying the understanding of the voice messages for further developments (e.g., translation into local languages).

For the moment, using voice commands is only possible through internet connectivity, but a 'light' version using resident voice commands is being discussed with the coders. While this might be easily achievable for French voice libraries, it will be quite difficult to implement for local languages. However, given the increased access of internet in rural areas, we anticipate that an internet-able version will allow more functionalities including data upload and future communication with, e.g., cloud-based climate advisors.

Converting voice commands and prompts into Hausa local language has been slower than anticipated, due to the limited availability of voice banks. However, our coding team are confident they will meet the challenge and provide the voice commands in Hausa to be integrated into FIA thanks to leveraged funds from other projects in 2023.

We have extensively tested FIA niebe (for the pod bug Clavigralla tomentosicollis) in Niger, Sept 15-24 2022, with cowpea farmers, extension agents, and graduate students of the University of Maradi. Major lessons learned during these testing and validation session are given below.

Lessons learned so far:

v) the FIA niebe digital advisory is easy to use;

vi) the number of plants to be inspected can be reduced from 6 to 4 per station to reduce scouting time and effort (this has already been implemented in the most recent version)

vii) need for color coding for pest presence/attack symptoms (e.g., green for uninfested organs, red for attacked organs) (this is currently being implemented);

viii) needs to address technical issues around internet connectivity for voice commands and stability of GPS captures.

Highlights of Addressing Cross Cutting Themes (HICD, Gender, Youth, Nutrition, Resilience)

HICD

Our project has tried to identify capacities that need to be strengthened in the working environment in which we collaborate. One of these is related to expertise in chemical ecology, for which we only have one trained professional in our team. Right now he is training a PhD student in basics of chemical ecology, but it would be desirable to expand this capacity beyond IITA-Benin.

Our project has tried to identify capacities that need to be strengthened in the working environment in which we collaborate. One of these is related to expertise in chemical ecology, for which we only have one trained professional in our team. Right now he is training a PhD student in basics of chemical ecology, but it would be desirable to expand this capacity beyond IITA-Benin.

However, one of the key factors which might restrict the wider diffusion of these technologies into national programs is the rather prohibitive costs of the equipment and specialized infrastructures where they will be set up. In fact, the cost of installing a basic, fully functional chemical ecology lab are in the magnitude of USD 300k. The other factor is related to preventive and routine maintenance of the equipment, together with the cost and availability of some supplies (e.g., pure helium gas).

More generally, our plans to mainstream HICD into project activities are considering sensitization campaigns explaining basic concepts of biological control and biopesticides that are carried out at release location targeting cowpea farmers and their families, extension agents, and local authorities. These campaigns will be flanked by the development of educational materials such as animation videos produced in collaboration with SAWBO. At the same time, simple smartphone apps will be developed to guide low-literacy farmers to take their own decisions with regard to cowpea pest control. Our HICS investment has a particular focus on ensuring that our research efforts will be sustained and continued incountry by a new generation of young researchers. Hence, a total of three PhD students (one in Niger and two in Burkina Faso, all female) have been enrolled at local Universities.

Gender

In the main project, we have included socio-economic adoption, gender and impact studies in Niger to go along with the scaling activities (with regard to biocontrol agents and neem tea-bags). A baseline survey has been conducted at the beginning of the project at selected project locations (interventions) and some adjacent communities (non-interventions) to determine the benchmark values of some performance indicators such as the use of improved varieties, use of chemical pesticides and biopesticides, the perceived key production constraints, average cowpea yields, and gender-sensitive socio-economic values to be determined. For selecting the sample size, a sample proportional to size of the target beneficiaries has been determined based on the final selection of intervention areas and type of interventions. However, sample size has been guided by the need to have enough statistical power to capture changes in target indicators and their desired disaggregation. During the last six month of the project in the same communities where baseline information was collected, an endline survey will allow measuring of changes in key performance indicators in both project intervention sites and non-intervention ones. Putting in all together a double difference is being calculated to measure project initial outcomes such as adoption status of the bio-pesticides, food security and/or poverty status of adopters compared to nonusers of approaches and tools promoted by the project.

In the cross-cutting grant on gender in Burkina Faso, we have investigated women’s knowledge and perceptions of and interest about IPM as well as the associated risks, vulnerability, and constraints to using IPM practices and technologies. To be inclusive with women in IPM decision-making, it is essential to understand important factors for adopting any IPM strategy; access to land, labor, credit, and understanding how culture, tradition (social recognition), attitude/perception towards health, food safety and nutritional consequence of pesticide usage, and practices influence agriculture. Upon final analysis, sex-disaggregated data will be available to further inform the gender assessment tool. More specifically, this study has investigated gender-differentiated access to resources, decision making, division of labor, and entrepreneurship activities related to IPM. The outcome of the study is being used to propose options and recommendations for action to increase access to and benefits derived from IPM for rural people, women in particular, and marginalized groups. This includes appropriate and efficient communication tools, capacity building, gender-responsive tools and practices.

Overall, the project has been able to inform further activities on gender-sensitive approaches in IPM for cowpea cropping systems and beyond. The proposed actions have targeted whole farming communities including women and youth. Although biological control per se is gender-and farm-size neutral, as all farming household members will be positively affected, it is important that the sensitization campaigns and educational materials are pro-actively gender-sensitive. The community-based production of biopesticides mostly rely on women and youth groups thereby improving their livelihoods through additional income.

Youth

We have put particular emphasis on ensuring that our research efforts will be sustained and continued incountry by a new generation of young researchers. Hence, a total of three PhD students (one in Niger and two in Burkina Faso) and three MSc students (one in Niger and two in Burkina Faso), all female, have been enrolled at local Universities. However, within the scope of the project, we are only able to target capacity building of young researchers. This has been done by out HC-co-PIs in close collaboration with the respective University supervisors based on perceived interest and merit of the candidates, giving priority to female candidates.

All three PhD students have been invited to IITA-Benin for internship and getting acquainted with novel insect rearing techniques, insect identification, basic molecular technology approaches, and basic chemical ecology methods. The students did undergo periodic reviews by the supervisory teams including the HC-co-PIs and University supervisors, towards submission of their theses.

Throughout the duration of the project, PhD students in particular have been an integral part of the HC team in their own institutions, as well as being registered with the respective Universities. However, within the scope of the project, we cannot predict and influence how these new talents will thrive in the national system and beyond. However, we stay in contact with them for any opportunities arising for, e.g., post-doc positions suitable to their profile. The PI is also closely linked to the Benin chapter of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World OWSD, through which he is aware of opportunities, such as early career women fellowships https://owsd.net/career-development/early-careerwomen-scientists-ecws-fellowships

Beyond the degree-related capacity development activities, the project did not contemplate inclusion of youth in terms of, e.g., entrepreneurship/business development, as we wanted to stay focused on what can be achieved withing the lifespan of the project and give priority to women-led production of biopesticides.

Nutrition

By the nature of our project focusing on sustainable IPM for cowpea insect pests, we did not consider directly the impact on nutrition. However, we expect that using less chemical pesticides in cowpea pest management will lead to healthier produce free of pesticide contaminants. The increased availability of cowpea grains from pesticide-free production will improve the health and nutritional status of consumers. Also, it could be interesting to be able to measure the improvement of the health and nutritional status of consumers of pesticide-free cowpea grains vs. those buying from the open market.

Resilience

We anticipate that the project activities will continue beyond the grant funding period as follows:

1) Biological control, as implemented by our project by inoculative releases of natural enemies (parasitic wasps) will persist and increase in scope by the spreading and establishment of the released biocontrol agents which will happene without further external inputs. It is expected that, at pilot sites first, and in neighboring areas subsequently, biological control agents will regulate the populations of the pod borer by at least 60% (although we do have preliminary evidence from pilot release location of up to 85% pest population reduction). Even without further releases after the end of the grant funding, we are confident that most cowpea cultivating areas withing the target project countries will be under biological control within a timeframe of up to 5 years.

2) For biopesticides, the current business model of the neem tea bag as implemented by ‘start-up’ women-led community-based organization is considered to have great potential of expansion beyond the duration of the project. First, the model is based on facilitating the formation of women groups and have them develop their business at their own pace, but keeping in mind that the driving force will be to produce a benefit for their household. Secondly, it has been the target of an educational animation video by SAWBO which illustrates in simple terms the whole process of producing the neem tea bag, as well as the benefits it can produce for rural farming households. These two factors, in our view, will be instrumental in assuring the sustainability of the approach beyond the current grant funding period.

3) For the Farmer Interface Application FIA, we are looking into the involvement of ESOKO (https://esoko.com/) providing digital services for agriculture for the region out of their HQ in Ghana, who can take over the management of the app after the end of the project. We are also actively leveraging funds from projects in the pipeline to continue and expand the work on FIA.

4) The success and visibility of the above activities will be used to catalyze further donor attention, e.g. for expanding the interventions to new areas/countries/regions.

The project has significantly contributed to create local expertise through our HICD activities, focusing on degree-related training, capacity building of HC-co-PIs and their assistants, biocontrol sensitization campaigns for farmers and local authorities, and the development of the SAWBO animation video.

Cropping system are expected to be more sustainable and climate-resilient through the implementation of IPM. Farmers using FIA will be able to make more precise decisions with regard to IPM interventions, and we have planned to expand FIA (with leveraged funds from outside sources) to include climate advisories. The project is already experiencing climate variability: this season, late rains impacted on the planting period of cowpea, and field activities had to be adjusted accordingly. Of course, we are aware that if major extreme events will occur such as extensive draughts and flooding, the crops will be affected beyond what IPM can redress.

Overall, the widespread use of biocontrol and biopesticides will certainly enhance the environmental resilience of the whole cowpea agro-ecosystem, while the surplus income from higher cowpea yields and community-based production of biopesticides will improve the economic resilience at the household level.

Utilization of Research Outputs and Handoff/Scaling of the Outputs

Biocontrol agents

The releases of biocontrol agents in Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria will stop at the end of current project, as we would have released sufficient numbers to allow establishment in conducive environments. It needs to be re-emphasized that, while we expect full establishment in Nigeria and the moister areas of Burkina Faso, the host pest M. vitrata is at the edge of its distribution in Niger and establishment can only be expected in hydromorphic areas. Nevertheless, the reduction of populations in Norther Nigeria (south of Niger) is expected to reduce the population of M. vitrata migrating to Niger during the cropping season. Based on the encouraging results obtained so far, we are keen to scale out this activity to other countries in West Africa where the pod borer remains a problem, particularly Ghana and Cameroon. We are also considering expanding the activity to Southern Africa, particularly moist areas of Zambia (such as the Chipata valley) and Mozambique (Gurue and Nampula regions). This could be operationalized within the next phase of the project, but also through funds leveraged from other initiatives such as the OneCGIAR Plant Health Initiative and the TAAT program.

This innovation is not likely to be easily passed on to the private sector, because of the nature of the intervention. In fact, this type of biological control which we call ‘inoculative’, only requires a few years of mass releases to establish populations of the biocontrol agents, mostly on alternative host plants in the wild. Besides participation in sensitization and education campaigns, farmers are not directly involved with the releases which are not expected to be carried out on regular basis in cowpea field, as you would expect with ‘inundative’ biological control where farmer purchase and release the biocontrol agents (and this is mostly on high value crops, e.g., in screenhouses).

Neem tea bags

This is without doubt the most easily scalable activity, because it has been already in the hands of scaling partners, our self-supporting women communities, from inception of the project. To ensure sustainability, however, periodic training and re-training session will be conducted, not only for the technical aspects related to the neem tea bag production, but also e.g., for issue related to marketing. Attempts to introduce this innovation to Burkina Faso have already started during the current project, and the replicability of the business models has been confirmed by preliminary observations. Here we are not targeting large scale commercial operations, but rather empowering local women-led small-scale businesses, which are an integral and substantial part of the private sector. However, we also need to highlights some challenges which have arisen from the experiences so far. Among them, the scarcity of neem grains during the rainy season has been mentioned on regular basis, so a good planning for proper collection of neem seeds during the dry season is necessary, together with the availability of appropriate storage facilities. The other challenge encountered on the marketing side is the weak purchasing power of individual cowpea farmers, hence the need to regroup them into farming federations/cooperatives with the support of local and traditional authorities whenever possible.

Another aspect which needs to be taken into considerations is the literacy level of the women members of the community-based units. In order to meet the production targets and quality standards, their knowledge and skills need to be improved, together with their access to modern ICT technologies, including market information technologies.

Educational materials

Our flagship educational product is the SAWBO animation video about the production of the neem tea bag to encourage the establishment of more women-led production units. Scaling will happen mainly through farmer-to-farmer exchanges, but also thanks to an active social media campaign, and strong collaboration on the ground with extension agents and NGOs active at the local level. This is already very well documented for other educational videos produced by SAWBO, so we just need to follow their path for scalability.

FIA

The main scaling strategy here is to pass on the further development and maintenance of the FIA to ESOKO, a social start-up IT enterprise in Ghana, who will take the app to a regional scale in West Africa. Initial discussions have already been engaged within the scope of the WB-funded AICCRA-Ghana cluster and will be pursued to arrive at a final agreement later in 2023.

Further Challenges and Opportunities

Biological control

In previous studies we have noted that foraging T. javanus females spend quite an amount of time on the cowpea plant looking for extrafloral nectaries on the flower cushion, to ingest sugar-rich exudates. We expect variable responses of the parasitoids to these stimuli and exudates, depending on the cowpea variety, or wild species. This information will be critical, on the one hand for breeders to include these host-location mediating traits in their programs, but also in order to be able to design and test novel approaches to make parasitoids more efficient in locating their hosts (e.g. through extrafloral nectaries in companion crops or wild species). Preliminary studies have been carried out as a PhD thesis of a female graduate student in Burkina Faso, but many questions are still unanswered. Also, the role of soil biota in mediating host stimuli has never been investigated for cowpea. Right now we are working on a proof of concept investigating endophytic colonization by the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana into maize plants, and the way it might be manipulating plant volatiles susceptible to attract female FAW moths, and/or egg parasitoids such as Telenomus remus. Once the main factors are elucidated, we might be able to export this model to cowpea and its pests attacking pods, the pod borer and pod sucking bugs, including their natural enemies.

As mentioned earlier, it is our intention to scale out releases of the biocontrol agents Liragathis javana and Phanerotoma syleptae to Zambia and Mozambique. However, critical research questions to address will be, among others, the presence and role of wild alternative host plant which are determinant factors affecting the performance of them in West Africa. These host plants are expected to be quite different from the ones encountered in West Africa, so this will be part of the discovery phase prior to the releases. In any case, the host pest M. vitrata is present in the region so it must survive the off-season in the absence of the cultivated host, cowpea, so we are confident the releases will be successful.

Biopesticides

Anticipating the uptake of the most active fungal isolates for commercial production by community-based groups and/or private sector operators, we have started investigating time- and resource-saving production technologies tailored to the different production schemes. 

At the same time, resistance profiles of target pests and resistance mechanisms (e.g., to neem products) need to be performed to assess any future trends.

Digital advisories beyond FIA

The project objective for developing and deploying digital advisories beyond the current version of FIA is to reduce the harmful impact of agricultural pesticides on human and environmental health by developing and deploying integrated solutions (a digital advisory, application of nature-based bio-pesticides, together with supporting strategy and policy recommendations) for empowering smallholder farmers to apply precise quantities of appropriate pest control products at the right time.

The technical innovation we are currently conceptualizing consists of a PestESA digital advisor: an opensource, open-access Android app for digitizing the Plant-Pest Ecosystem Analysis process through robust scouting methodology and economic damage thresholds targeting cereal-legume cropping systems, which were selected as examples of food security-relevant cropping system experiencing high level of inappropriate pesticide applications. Hence, the priority for these cropping systems is to reduce or avoid harmful pesticide regimes through deployment and use of PestESA to guide smallholder farmers to 1) regularly inspect their fields for identifying key insect pests, determining and reporting attack levels, 2) take real-time informed decisions about appropriate pest management measures; 3) facilitate their choice of efficient and safe pest management products, including access to a range of locally produced biopesticides.

A similar decision-making approach has been used in F2F extension approaches such as Farmer Field Schools (FFS), but its widespread adoption is critically hindered by the need for season-long and costly training sessions, which are mostly dependent on volatile project funding. We are convinced PestESA is a unique game changer that will give farmers a personalized and steady access to agro-ecological resources for managing their own fields without the need for constant external assistance and can easily be upscaled to other cropping systems. Coaching of local youth- and women-led start-up enterprises in developing business plans to deploy and maintain the digital advisory and produce bio-pesticides will be key to the sustainability of this effort.

At the same time, we are convinced that recent advance in the field of nanosensors will allow coupling these connected devices with the PestESA to detect the presence of insect pests in their field even before they can build up a critical population. PestESA will also be linked with climate and soil fertility advisories to provide farmers with comprehensive information beyond plant protections. Discussions with interested parties are already taking place in this sense.