By Buertey Francis Boryor
The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana (UG), has held a one-day agricultural sector stakeholder engagement workshop for inputs into improving the Centre’s curriculum to enable it train the next generation of plant breeders with skills and knowledge necessary to address the complex challenges of modern agriculture.
The two-session workshop was part of WACCI’s activities toward marking this year’s Day of Scientific Renaissance of Africa (DSRA) celebrations – highlighting the Centre’s commitment to advancing scientific knowledge and fostering innovation across Africa.
It was supported by the World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence for Development Impact (ACE-Impact) project and the EU-Erasmus ImPression project, and brought together beneficiaries of the MPhil Plant Breeding programme, post-graduate students and relevant stakeholders to brainstorm and find solutions to some of the major challenges facing the country’s agriculture sector.
The interactive session’s deliberations were devoted to subjects on how academia can partner industry for a win-win collaboration in plant breeding, how plant breeding programmes can be improved to benefit industry needs, as well as how the industry can support research for the benefit of society and many others.
Additionally, the workshop aimed to discuss the importance of intellectual property for agricultural innovations, foster collaborations with the private sector and share knowledge to facilitate the development of IP-based agricultural enterprises.
Dr. Daniel Dzidzienyo, Deputy Director-Administration, Teaching and Learning at WACCI, in his opening remarks at the event said aligning our educational efforts with agricultural sector needs is essential for building a resilient food system that can withstand the challenges of our time and significantly impact food security and economic development across Africa.
To drive growth of innovative agricultural businesses, he underscored the critical need for students and stakeholders to be equipped with the tools and understanding needed to navigate complexities of intellectual property.
“Protecting and managing intellectual property is crucial for fostering creativity and ensuring effective commercialisation of innovations. By working together we can promote the commercialisation of agricultural innovations, ensuring that the benefits of our research reach farmers and communities across Africa,” Dr. Dzidzienyo further noted.
Meanwhile, Dr. John Saviour Yaw Eleblu – Senior lecturer at the Biotechnology Centre and Coordinator of Research Programmes at WACCI, in an interview with Business and Financial Times (B&FT) after the event said investing in research is the surest way by which businesses within the agricultural space can succeed.
He added that institutions like the Biotechnology Centre-UG and WACCI exist solely to support the training of needed human capacity for both public and private sector industries, and support their research to develop unique products.
“At WACCI and the Biotechnology Centre-University of Ghana, we work on crops and develop unique products using biological systems. Traditional biotechnology allows us to use biological systems or living things to create products,” he added.
In the field of plant breeding, for instance, he noted that WACCI has through hybridisation developed three maize hybrids that yield ten times more than farmers usually get.
“For maize in Ghana, the average yield is now 3 tonnes per hectare – but our varieties can give you up to 10/11 tonnes per hectare. So you see, clearly, the leap and advantage of working with research institutions and academia to develop these unique products for industry,” he elaborated.
Dr. Yaw Eleblu furthermore said the Centre has released tomatos hybrids yielding between 40 to 58 tonnes per hectare – 5 times more than the 8 to 10 tonnes per hectare the country’s farmers are now getting.
DSRA commemoration event took place in the WACCI auditorium, University of Ghana (UG) Accra.
