Omomowo Olawale Israel, Babalola Olubukola Oluranti
Food Security and Safety Niche Area, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University, Mmabatho, South Africa.
Front Plant Sci. 2021 Oct 22;12:751731. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.751731. eCollection 2021.
Providing safe and secure food for an increasing number of people globally is challenging. Coping with such a human population by merely applying the conventional agricultural production system has not proved to be agro-ecologically friendly; nor is it sustainable. Cowpea ( (L) Walp) is a multi-purpose legume. It consists of high-quality protein for human consumption, and it is rich in protein for livestock fodder. It enriches the soil in that it recycles nutrients through the fixation of nitrogen in association with nodulating bacteria. However, the productivity of this multi-functional, indigenous legume that is of great value to African smallholder farmers and the rural populace, and also to urban consumers and entrepreneurs, is limited. Because cowpea is of strategic importance in Africa, there is a need to improve on its productivity. Such endeavors in Africa are wrought with challenges that include drought, salinity, the excessive demand among farmers for synthetic chemicals, the repercussions of climate change, declining soil nutrients, microbial infestations, pest issues, and so forth. Nevertheless, giant strides have already been made and there have already been improvements in adopting sustainable and smart biotechnological approaches that are favorably influencing the production costs of cowpea and its availability. As such, the prospects for a leap in cowpea productivity in Africa and in the enhancement of its genetic gain are good. Potential and viable means for overcoming some of the above-mentioned production constraints would be to focus on the key cowpea producer nations in Africa and to encourage them to embrace biotechnological techniques in an integrated approach to enhance for sustainable productivity. This review highlights the spectrum of constraints that limit the cowpea yield, but looks ahead of the constraints and seeks a way forward to improve cowpea productivity in Africa. More importantly, this review investigates applications and insights concerning mechanisms of action for implementing eco-friendly biotechnological techniques, such as the deployment of bio inoculants, applying climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices, agricultural conservation techniques, and multi-omics smart technology in the spheres of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, for improving cowpea yields and productivity to achieve sustainable agro-ecosystems, and ensuring their stability.
为全球日益增长的人口提供安全可靠的食物是一项挑战。仅仅采用传统农业生产系统来应对如此庞大的人口，已被证明对农业生态并不友好，也不可持续。豇豆（Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp）是一种多用途豆类。它含有供人类食用的优质蛋白质，也富含作为牲畜饲料的蛋白质。它通过与根瘤菌结合固氮来循环养分，从而使土壤肥沃。然而，这种对非洲小农户、农村人口以及城市消费者和企业家都具有重要价值的多功能本土豆类的生产力是有限的。由于豇豆在非洲具有战略重要性，因此有必要提高其生产力。非洲的此类努力面临诸多挑战，包括干旱、盐碱化、农民对合成化学品的过度需求、气候变化的影响、土壤养分下降、微生物侵扰、虫害问题等等。尽管如此，已经取得了巨大进展，在采用可持续和智能生物技术方法方面已经有所改进，这些方法正在对豇豆的生产成本及其可得性产生有利影响。因此，非洲豇豆生产力实现飞跃并提高其遗传增益的前景良好。克服上述一些生产限制的潜在可行方法是关注非洲主要的豇豆生产国，并鼓励它们采用综合生物技术方法来提高可持续生产力。本综述强调了限制豇豆产量的一系列制约因素，但展望未来，寻求提高非洲豇豆生产力的前进道路。更重要的是，本综述研究了关于实施生态友好型生物技术方法作用机制的应用和见解，例如在基因组学、转录组学、蛋白质组学和代谢组学领域部署生物接种剂、应用气候智能型农业（CSA）实践、农业保护技术以及多组学智能技术，以提高豇豆产量和生产力，实现可持续农业生态系统并确保其稳定性。
