Our grantees in Ghana are taking on a big challenge–to create a commercial seed market for a crop where none existed before for the benefit of farmers and consumers. We’re happy with the progress they’re making.
The Bambara groundnut is a hearty legume unfamiliar to most in the West. Packed with essential vitamins and minerals, Bambara groundnuts also do well in arid and semi-arid climates. It takes time to process them for consumption, but this is a minor hurdle that restaurants and food processors are already overcoming—you can find a few eateries serving Bambara groundnuts in parts of Ghana, and at least one company is selling Bambara groundnut milk. It grows with little water, which is critical as the climate changes in sub-Saharan Africa.
We awarded a grant to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI) in Ghana to develop and propagate the world’s first commercial-scale varieties of Bambara groundnut. Success will put more money in smallholder farmers’ pockets and greatly enhance food security in Ghana and beyond. CSIR-SARI impressed us with their knowledge of this plant and respect for its potential. We were even more impressed with their commitment to building the community foundation upon which the Bambara groundnut’s success will depend, by establishing numerous community-based “innovation platforms.”
In its latest quarterly progress report, CSIR-SARI shares updates not only on their scientific work but also on their engagement with the community through so-called innovation platforms.
Platform for growth
What is an innovation platform? The team at CSIR-SARI defines it simply as “a space for learning and change.” In greater detail, they explain that an innovation platform is:
“A group of actors on a production value chain of a particular crop with different backgrounds and interests. Actors may include farmers, traders, food processors, researchers, government officials, input dealers, etc. The purpose of IP is for the actors to come together to diagnose their problems, identify opportunities, and find solutions to their problems and ways to achieve their goals.”
Innovation platforms lie at the heart of CSIR-SARI’s strategy to see the Bambara groundnut achieve true commercial success in Ghanaian agriculture. Creating these IPs means gathering farmers alongside government agricultural extension officers, food wholesalers, retailers, and anyone else who may have a stake in the success of this potential superfood. As noted, there is a modest market for Bambara groundnuts in Ghana today, but it is nowhere near the status of a common staple found routinely in Ghanaian cuisine. CSIR-SARI hopes to change this, and they are going to need all the allies they can get to achieve this vision.
In their latest update, the team at CSIR-SARI said they have been conducting several IP training sessions in two of the regions in their focus area. Some of this training involves selling the communities on the importance of forming and operating innovation platforms in the first place. “Educating Bambara groundnut farmers and stakeholders on the need and benefits of forming/strengthening Innovation Platforms was the emphasis of the training,” they said.
CSIR-SARI recently organized “community field schools” in the Savanna and Northern regions of the larger area where they have centered this research and development project. In each, they chose three communities to mobilize for training on forming and managing innovation platforms. They said farmers, food traders, food processors, seed and fertilizer dealers, and government agents alike participated in these community field schools.
During the training sessions, CSIR-SARI researchers walked the participants “through the importance and benefits of forming and belonging to IPs as far as Bambara groundnut production and value chain was concerned.” They said they were careful to afford the farmers, government extension agents, market workers, and everyone involved ample time and opportunities to ask questions and to have their voices heard. Among other questions, stakeholders asked the CSIR-SARI team if they would have to purchase the enhanced Bambara groundnut variety seeds. They asked how they may access farm equipment like tractors. And they wanted to know how often these innovation platforms would have to meet to coordinate matters. CSIR-SARI said the improved varieties’ seeds would be available for purchase from the market, but that the farmers would be given initial seed to get things rolling. They also promised to look into ways to give farmers access to equipment like tractors.
As far as the frequency of IP meetings, they stressed that this was a question for the community stakeholders to settle, and not them. “The IP is to be owned by the people so they can meet as often as they want,” CSIR-SARI explained. “However, we will visit them periodically for group activities,” like training initiatives and demonstrations. Innovation platforms will work as cooperative planning and problem-solving forums. Members of IPs can meet regularly to give updates on the cultivation cycle from planting through harvest and marketing, or on any other aspect of Bambara groundnut commercialization. Or they can meet only to address problems as they arise. The important piece is the regular community engagement and stakeholder ownership.
The purpose of IP is for the actors to come together to diagnose their problems, identify opportunities, and find solutions to their problems and ways to achieve their goals.
Developing new varieties through trial and error
As important as the innovation platforms will be, the researchers must prepare improved Bambara groundnut varieties to ensure that farmers and the IP networks can hit the ground running. CSIR-SARI told us that they are making good progress here, as well.
Our partners in Ghana say they are working diligently to better understand the genetic diversity locked within the Bambara groundnut. They say this is being achieved mainly through investigating simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. “Simple sequence repeat markers are highly informative due to their variability, reproducibility, and co-dominant nature, which makes them especially useful for studying population structure and genetic relationships,” the team explained. They said this methodology is commonly used to research legume crops like soybeans.
CSIR-SARI told us that they’ve identified 85 SSR markers using some 546 Bambara groundnut accessions, distinct samples of different types of seed. Thus far, they say about 25% of the SSR markers are usable for this genetic diversity study. It’s not a lot, but they say this will be “good enough to show genetic variability among the accessions.”
CSIR-SARI still has much work to do, both scientific and sociological. But at Grow Further we’re confident in the progress they’re making. The innovation platforms will be the soil from which this Bambara groundnut revolution will sprout and rise. “In the coming season, we will continue to engage with the IPs in all the regions, conduct diversity studies, and multi-location trials and demonstrations,” CSIR-SARI said.
— Grow Further
Photo credit: A researcher explains innovation platforms to community members in a bid to boost Bambara groundnut cultivation. Courtesy of CSIR-SARI.