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A delegation from the Elon University of North Carolina in the United States have visited the Crop Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Kumasi on an educational tour.
The visit is as a result of a relationship between the university and the institute which dates back two decades, with both sides benefiting from mutual exchanges over the period.
The visiting delegation, made up of some senior lecturers and students, hope to learn from the institute’s activities, its best practices.
The Crop Research Institute team, led by a Senior Research Scientist, Dr Kwadwo Adofo, took the visitors round the facility and demonstrated how the institute handled plants and the laboratories.
A professor at the Faculty of History and Geography at the Elon University, Prof. Waseem Kasim, explained that the visit was to expose the students to the Ghanaian way of life, appreciate cultural diversities and to exchange ideas.
Also, it was to afford them the opportunity to learn more about crop research in the tropical African environment.
A Senior Research Scientist of the Crop Research Institute, Dr Stephen Yeboah, presenting a paper on “Sustainable agriculture and climate change: the role of the CSIR Crop Research Institute,” as part of the activities for the visiting delegation, said the institute was coming up with climate-smart technologies to develop crop varieties resistant to the weather phenomenon, and to mitigate the impact on agriculture in general.
He stressed that climate change was causing serious havoc to many sectors of development, stressing that the crop sub-sector had not been spared.
Another Senior Research Scientist specialised in tissue culture at the institute, Dr David Appiah Kubi, explained how seeds were developed at the laboratory, and some challenges they encountered.
The Head of Section, Molecular Biology, CSIR-CRI, Dr Ruth Prempeh, highlighted some challenges in their operations, and appealed for funding support.
A retired Senior Scientist of the CRI, Prof. Blessed Mensah Dzomeku, said Ghana’s agricultural sector still had untapped potential that could be harnessed to make it worthwhile despite grappling with a myriad of challenges.
Prof. Dzomeku said such exchange programmes should be encouraged to facilitate development.
An Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Elon University, Prof. Musa Iddris, described the visit as a fascinating experience, indicating that it had helped in correcting some misconceptions and re-shaping mindsets.
“We came with an assumption, but this visit has been a fascinating experience and helped us in correcting some misconceptions,” he stated.
Established in 1964, the Crop Research Institute is the largest of the 13 institutes under the CSIR of Ghana.
Its vision is to become a centre of excellence for agricultural research, innovation and capacity building for development.
Its goals include development and dissemination of appropriate technologies that are demand-driven and acceptable to end users, promote and strengthen strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders, to generate solutions to challenges in agricultural research, technology development and dissemination.
Its current research programmes cover horticulture, cereals and legumes improvement.
