The Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah says government must stop importing seeds variety for farmers and rather adopt local varieties which have proven to be resilient in view of the climate change confronting the world.
According to him, his outfit has developed several varieties of seed for maize farming which can be used locally.
He further called for more funding and resources to be able to get these varieties to farmers to improve crop yield.
Professor Yirenkyi Danquah was speaking at a forum organised by the University of Ghana and Cornell University on leadership and academics in Accra.
According to WACCI, almost all the seeds varieties used under the government’s flagship programme for ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ are imported at the detriment of locally produced varieties thereby killing innovations.
“The challenge has to do with quality. In maize we have shown that we are one of the lead institutions for maize breeding in West Africa. In rice we just brought rice and we are trying to see if we can start releasing to West Africa”.
“For us at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement one of the things we have done is to release varieties which will hit farmers’ fields soon. The time has come for us to build local innovations and put innovations in the hands of farmers-
Innovations that are developed in-country because our maize hybrids are better than those that are imported into the country”.
The Centre is also developing tomato varieties to be exported to other west African countries.
By Richard Bright Addo