600,000 more farmers adopt triple bagging for safe cowpea storage - new film shows how RIU Nigeria did it
27 July 2010



RIU Nigeria has produced a new film for RIUtv telling the story of how they facilitated a multi-agency collaboration to advocate triple bagging technology to 1200 communities getting their message to an estimated one million people.

There was a clear problem of post-harvest infestation with weevils. Farmers tried to address the issue by applying chemicals to kill or repel the weevils, but these treatments sometimes rendered the cowpeas toxic, resulting in reported cases of sickness and even deaths across Nigeria. An innovation in the hermetic method of storage - known as 'triple bagging', offers a safe and affordable alternative.

The film tells the story of how RIU Nigeria persuaded 120 extension workers from 6 states to learn the technique of triple bagging and to then work through their networked villages to apply the technique. 600,000 farmers adopted the approach - supporting an estimate 3 million livelihoods.

Bringing such large additional numbers to the technique helped convince the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other donors, that this is a viable programme with community support.

Utiang Ugbe of RIU Nigeria said:

"The film tells the story of how RIU Nigeria facilitated the training of 120 extension workers across six states on the triple bagging (hermetic) method of cowpea storage; each extension work then sensitized ten villages to use the storage methods, thereby reaching 1200 communities, enabling 600,000 cowpea farmers and marketers to adopt the approach last season. This eliminated both post-harvest losses and poisoning usually associated with cowpea storage in the participating communities."

RIU Nigeria partnered with the IITA, the Purdue University (Agriculture Faculty, USA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) in six states, independent trainers and resource persons, and a private sector bag producing company, selected radio and TV stations, community/religious leaders, and associations of cowpea farmers and marketers. All the partners have expressed delight and satisfaction with the initial success of the intervention.

This was a good example of how we were able to facilitate a multiagency partnership and, in a very short space of time, roll out a simple but effective storage technique at scale. This collaboration made it easier to get an agricultural innovation implemented. Our challenge now is to see how we can redouble our efforts. Cowpeas are very widely grown; production in Nigeria stands at some 1.5 million tonnes mainly grown by smallholders working with very basic technologies. So there is plenty more scope for RIU to work with other partners to roll-out this approach in Nigeria and beyond."