The Cowpea

Cowpea, originally inconspicuous little plants that crept among the rocks of the dusty southern Sahel in north central Africa, was domesticated thousands of years ago.  Today, the genetic descendants of those wild plants are grown, as local or improved cultivars, on tens of millions of small holder farms in the drier zones of Africa, in a great arc from Senegal eastward to Sudan and Somalia and southward to Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. Two hundred million children, women and men consume cowpea often, even daily when it is available. It is widely know as a crop of the poor.

Cowpea is a nearly perfect match for the African soil, the weather, and the people.

Its grain is rich in protein and digestible carbohydrate; its energy content is nearly equal to that of cereal grains. Combined with cereals in the diet, lysine-rich cowpea complements the lysine-poor cereals, while the cereals supply the sulfur-containing amino acids needed for a balanced amino acid intake.

The tender leaves of the plant are nutritious as well; these contain 25% protein as a percentage of dry weight, and the protein quality is high. In many areas of Africa fresh leaves are regularly harvested and consumed, often as part of the typical "sauce".  The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration is so impressed with the nutritional potential of cowpea leaves that they are considering growing cowpeas in future space stations as food for astronauts.

In some areas of Africa, cowpeas are cooked as green pods, and the swollen beans consumed.  These fresh cowpea pods, together with fresh green leaves, are the earliest foods available at the end of the "hungry time".  The succulent leaves can be harvested as soon as 21 days after planting, and cultivars are available that produce harvestable grain after only 60 days.

Like other legumes, cowpea fixes atmospheric nitrogen, and thus contributes to the available N levels in the soil. Often intercropped with sorghum, millet or maize, transfer of cowpea-fixed N to the cereal fosters cereal growth and increases yields.  In farming systems where cowpea grown in monocrop is rotated with a cereal, the residual N from the cowpea benefits the cereal in the subsequent season.

One of the more remarkable things about cowpea is that it thrives in dry environments; cultivars are available that produce a crop with as little as 300 mm of rainfall.  This makes it the crop of choice for the Sahelian zone and the dry savannahs, though cultivars that flourish in the moist savannahs are available as well.

The deep root systems of cowpea help stabilize the soil, and the ground cover it provides preserves moisture; these traits are particularly important in the drier regions, where moisture is at a premium and the soil is fragile and subject to wind erosion.

• Who Grows Cowpea? • The Cowpea Weevil Problem. • The "Smorgasbord Strategy". • Technologies in Hand

• Who Grows Cowpea? • The Cowpea Weevil Problem.
• The "Smorgasbord Strategy". • Technologies in Hand