Ghanaian farmers to access new rice and sorghum varieties

Farmers in Ghana would soon access new varieties of rice and sorghum from Mali and Senegal respectively to boost local production, under the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP).

Breeders at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are adapting the varieties, which are expected to be released to farmers later this year.

Under the WAAPP, countries specialized in developing crops of comparative advantage for adoption by other countries. New technologies are put in a common basket for accessibility, in a bid to enhance integration and collaboration of agricultural research activities in the sub-region.

In Ghana, priority crops under the first phase of the ten-year project focused on root and tubers – mainly yam, cocoyam, sweet potato and cassava.

Communications officer for WAAPP-Ghana, Emmanuel Alorigiya, tells Luv Fm the second phase, which took off last February, has been expanded to cover grains, cereals and livestock.

Communication specialists under the Programme are undergoing training on management of agricultural communication in Kumasi. The workshop is to empower the officers in disseminating information on agricultural technologies to farmers, processors and marketers.

WAAPP is a sub-regional programme supported by the World Bank and implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and CSIR.

The objective of the programme is to generate and disseminate improved technologies in the West Africa region and achieve 25 percent increase in the productivity of the main agricultural sectors of the participating countries.

Ghana National Project Coordinator, Mrs Azara Ali-Mamshie, is enthused about success of the programme in the release of crop varieties to increase crop yields.

Cassava production, she stated, has increased from 12,000 tonnes per hectare to 35,000 tonnes per hectare in the beneficiary countries.

Low levels of technology adoption arising out of the lack of information and communication have been identified as a major challenge facing agricultural productivity in West Africa.