Nairobi based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and Monsanto are set to introduce genetically engineered cowpeas in the coming years into the fields and tables of Africa.

It will use Nigeria and Burkina Faso as key entry points, with Ghana, Cameroon, Niger and Mali comprising the second tier of countries that will be targeted. The project is assisted by Nigeria- based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), one of the 15 agricultural research institutes of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR is funded primarily by the World Bank, the US, Japan, the European Union and Canada. Indeed, the IITA has the mandate for cowpea research and is in the forefront of breeding high yielding varieties by using a range of genetic manipulation techniques to deal with biological constraints affecting crop yields and quality.

Read more here.