By: Joyce Gyekye
Beans leaves is eaten in northern part of Ghana the same way “Palava sauce” or “Kontomere” stew is consumed. Unlike “Kontomere” which is cocoyam leaves, that of beans may be sprayed with pesticides about eight times by farmers to reduce pest infestation.
The “Kontomere” stew is eaten with staple foods like boiled yam or plantain, known among the Akans in Ghana as “Ampesi”.
The Kontomere stew is popular in the country and it is eaten by most people regardless of tribe. But what most southerners are oblivious of is that the leaves of cowpea are liked by northerners.
A woman from Sisaala in the Upper West Rest Region who preferred to be known as Maemuna said “she eats the leaves of the black-eye cowpea a lot because it is very nutritious. During this season, we make good soup out of it”. She noted that since the leaves are hard“ we add saltpetre in pounding it to make it tender.”
Saltpeter is the natural mineral source of the chemical potassium nitrate. Another woman also from the same region called Abiba said bean leaves soup is her husband’s “favourite.”
It has some aroma which gives me an appetite and I enjoy it with “Tuo-Zaafi”, a staple prepared out of dry milled corn. Abiba also stated that the nutritional value of the bean leaves is not any different from the bean itself.”
Cowpea leaves is a leafy vegetable and contains higher percentage iron, protein, potassium, calcium and a little fat among other minerals.
What the two women do not know is the chemicals they might be ingesting into their body. This is due to the pesticides that farmers use in getting rid of the most destructive pest; Maruca Vitrata or pod borer that destroys about 80 percent of beans.
A cowpea farmer from Zini in the Sissala West District of the Upper West region, Zamba Abdalah said as soon as the plants start flowering, insects attack them and “That is when I use “Target” or “DDT” to spray the plants to prevent the insects from destroying the flowers.”
Though he acknowledged that DDT; Dichloro-diphenhy-trichloroethane has been banned, he said he uses it. “Because of the strong scent which prevents the insect from sitting on the beans to destroy them.”
This is scary because DDT is among the chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants, POPs. They stay longer on plants or surfaces without getting degraded easily.
The Principal Investigator of the GM cowpea project at the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, SARI, of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR, Dr. Jerry Nboyine, mentioned K-Optimal, D-ban and Langano as some of the accepted insecticides used to control pests in cowpea.
He said “consumers of annual crops are easily poisoned when farmers harvest plants sprayed with pesticides that contain active ingredients called chlorpyrifos without observing pre harvest guidelines.”
He noted that all insecticides can have acute or chronic effects on humans and animals when ingested.
Dr Nboyine said “with Ghana’s rapidly increasing population, one of the surest ways to increase our agricultural productivity is to adopt science and biotechnology in particular in farming and that is where the concept of GMO or BT crops come into play.”
He emphasized that conventional cowpea varieties can attain some yield but “we can attain double dose when we begin to look at biotech crops in general in our agricultural landscape.”
This assertion by Dr Nboyine was confirmed by a farmer in Abuja, Nigeria, Yunesah Yakubu Kwamina who planted GM cowpea when it was released to farmers last year for demonstration.
He said “with the small piece of land, I had about 62 kilograms, then if it is one hectre I hope to get about 30 bags.”
He noted that with the indigenous beans, he usually gets two bags.
The global food crisis following the Russia-Ukraine war has affected wheat production leading to hikes in the price of flour-based products including bread. So those who prefer bread with their “Kooko” which is porridge, are now shifting to bean doughnuts known as “Koosey.”
When approval is finally given for the release of GM beans to farmers in Ghana as done in Nigeria, it will reduce the effects of chemicals on the leaves that are eaten as leafy vegetables and the beans itself.
This way, farmers will make more money, reduce hunger and malnutrition and move a step ahead in meeting sustainable development goal one: that calls for an end to poverty, goal two: zero hunger and related environmental goals by the year 2030.
National Biosafety Authority, (NBA)of Ghana in May 2022 received more than 850 letters from the public after it gazetted a dossier on GM cowpea in February this year.
The letters have been forwarded to the Technical Committee of the Authority for review.