The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), has launched a Vegetables Innovation Laboratory (VIL) as part of efforts to beef up vegetable production and food security in Ghana and the sub-region.
The VIL thematic areas include genetic improvement, vegetable production and quality control, processing, value chains and socio-economic research, policy research and knowledge management systems.
At the launch in Accra as part of a two-day workshop on Tomato Value Chain in Ghana at the University of Ghana, Professor Eric Y. Danquah, the Director, WACCI/Biotechnology Centre, said the lack of breeders in Ghana was hampering the growth of the tomato industry in Ghana.
He said currently the Crops Research Institute at Fumesua had only two vegetable breeders who lacked expertise in the use of technologies needed to accelerate the development of superior tomato varieties for a changing sub-region and emerging markets for the benefit of Ghanaians.
The workshop, which was organized by the centre in collaboration with Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, brought together 35 renowned research scientists and stakeholders in the tomato industry from across the globe.
It sought to create awareness about the proposed WACCI Vegetable Innovation Lab; explore the possibility of establishing a public-private consortium in West Africa that raises tomato productivity through an integrative research approach underpinned by science and technology and to develop a strategy for accelerating a successful tomato industry in Ghana.
Professor Danquah said for Ghana to make a head way in tomato production, there was the need for government to train breeders, and to give priority to its production.
Prof Danquah said tomato was a research neglected crop compared to the cereals, and the root and tuber crops in West Africa.
However, it was more than gold, and that a country like Burkina Faso was doing well in its production.
He said although Ghana was capable of self-sufficiency in tomato production, it depended largely on imports from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso.
The Director noted that through a public-private partnership, challenges facing the tomato value chain in Ghana could be addressed.
He said the Research Initiative covered genetic analysis of productivity traits in tomato for improved adaptation to low input production conditions and genetic improvement for enhanced yield under all the stresses.
It also included the development of heat-tolerant, high yielding and consumer acceptable varieties of tomato for off-season production.
Prof Danquah said WACCI, which was one of the World Bank’s African Centre of Excellence would receive eight million dollars from the Bank by next August; thus providing the springboard for transforming the Centre into a sustainable African Centre of Excellence for training Plant Breeders and Seed Scientists and Technologists.
Source: ghanaweb
