Cowpea, and the Monopoly for Life
Seeds are larger than the existence of humans. With or without human activity, a seed is a self replicating system. The earth herself is a custodian of her seeds. Life on earth is sustained as trees drop their fruits and the seeds are replanted, the wind carries the seeds of grains and other plants across fields, birds migrate and drop seeds of the foods they consume across the globe, and as animals travel through forests and jungles, seeds are caught on their fur and germinate where they fall.
Indigenous seeds are integral to the function, operations, and movement of all people worldwide. The planting, saving, keeping, and use of indigenous seeds carries genetic information, cultural knowledge, and plant diversity that speaks to the existence, the survival, and the history of earth.
We are at risk of losing our relationship to, and devaluing our understanding with the natural world as we shift to and invest in genetically modified seeds. We have adopted a particular kind of scientific knowledge that prioritizes itself over indigenous knowledge and the heritage of plants, through journals, publications, and western laboratories. Thus, this kind of scientific validation becomes a priority over years of proven and lived indigenous knowledge that has sustained many communities.
Biotech companies have been working for years to incorporate Genetically Modified (GM) crops into Ghana’s development agenda. The argument for pushing GM crops in Ghana is said to strengthen food security in the country, to make farming more beneficial to farmers, and to make food prices cheaper for customers. And yet with other GM foods in other countries, these arguments are yet to be proven right. Scientists at SARI (savannah agricultural research institute) have submitted an application for the approval of the release of Ghana’s first genetically modified crop, the cowpea. If approved, cowpea seeds will be available to farmers at the beginning of the next farming season.
Cowpea is an indigenous African crop. The current challenges of cowpea as a crop are not new to the modern world, African farmers and communities growing cowpea are aware of its challenges, and have used organic and communal knowledge to address, mitigate, and solve these challenges. If cowpea is facing challenges to provide the much needed yield, why are we not asking how African farmers who have been producing cowpea for years without chemicals. Why are we not asking African farmers what are other ways of reducing pests without GM and chemicals? And to further examine which varieties of cowpeas are more resilient to the climate conditions, soil challenges, and pest issues? .
Already, without being genetically modified, the deep roots of cowpea help stabilize the soil. The plant’s shade and dense cover helps protect the ground and preserve moisture. It’s traditionally grown with sorghum, millet, or maize, to foster the health of these plants and to help its own plant flourish. What would it mean for the health and state of millet, and sorghum to start intercropping genetically modified cowpea?
Cowpea is imperative to West African cooking. In Nigeria, foods like moi moi, ewa riro, and akara are made with cowpea. In Ghana, it is used to make red red, toubani, and koose. Also known as black eye peas in other parts of the world, cowpea is rich in protein and helps with the absorption of staple foods like rice, cassava, and corn. Most cowpeas are cooked with vegetables, spices, and palm oil to produce a thick stew.
From the central of Africa to the west of Africa, many communities saved the best cowpea seeds they could find, they domesticated, nurtured, and shared these seeds. In Senegal, I went to Kermeel market in Dakar, keur massar market, HLM, colobane market, and there I saw so many varieties of cowpeas I have never seen before. I noticed some light purplish ones, some darker spotted purpleish ones, some honey brown, and some darker brown ones. I was particularly surprised by the varieties of cowpea that exist. African farmers have kept and protected these varieties of cowpeas since discovery.
To genetically modify indigenous seeds is to shift seeds away from the hands of African farmers, communities, and families. Seeds that are a part of the culture, the tradition, and the plate of the diverse ethinic groups and cultures that exist within the African continent. My farmer friend, Mr. Fuiseini, once mentioned to me that, he has eight shea trees on his farm, and none of them did he plant, but rather he observed that over the years bats have consumed and dropped the seeds of shea in his garden. Currently, he has a dawadawa tree growing that he did not plant. Before humans, the birds, the bees, the animals, the flowers, the plants, the trees, and the soil had their relationship to seeds.
The best we can do is save our own indigenous seeds, and push our governments to create policies that protect our seeds at all costs. The entire earth’s ecosystem depends on the original genetic information of indigenous seeds to remain organic. We cannot give the mother of seeds to corporations to tell us what, when, and how to eat and sustain our planet. When we allow corporations to convince us that the only way to feed the world, to keep more food on farms, to grow more food in abundance, is to genetically modify indigenous seeds, we run the risk of collapsing the biodiversity heritage of the world and earth's ecosystem.
