Ghana's cocoa future at risk without producer-centred climate policies — Study

A new study has called for a major rethinking of climate adaptation and sustainability policies in Ghana's cocoa sector, arguing that future investments must focus not only on protecting cocoa trees and boosting production but also on strengthening the resilience of cocoa producers.

 

The call was made at a gathering in Accra to discuss findings from the study titled "Towards a Cocoa Producer-Focused Climate Policy in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana."

 

The research, conducted by scholars from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and partner institutions such as Harvard University, the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research and the Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny (INP-HB) in Côte d'Ivoire, argues that current climate adaptation strategies remain overly focused on cocoa production while paying insufficient attention to cocoa producers.

 

A Research and Policy Breakfast attracted researchers, policymakers, cocoa cooperatives, industry actors, development partners, civil society organisations, and representatives from Ghana's cocoa sector.

 

Presenting the findings, Dr. Albert Arhin of KNUST's Institute for Rural Development and Innovation Studies (IRDIS) noted that climate adaptation efforts in the cocoa sector have traditionally focused on increasing yields, controlling pests and diseases, and improving environmental sustainability.

 

He argued that while these interventions remain important, they are no longer sufficient on their own.

 

"Climate change is not only affecting cocoa trees. It is affecting the people who grow cocoa. Farmers are reporting rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, declining yields, increasing production costs, physical exhaustion, and growing uncertainty about the future of cocoa farming. These human dimensions of climate change require much greater policy attention," said Dr. Arhin.

 

The research was undertaken across cocoa-growing communities in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire and combined household surveys, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and participatory research methods to capture farmers' experiences and perspectives.

 

According to the findings, many cocoa farmers are experiencing increasing difficulty managing climate-related shocks. Farmers reported working fewer hours during periods of extreme heat, facing rising labour demands, and struggling to implement adaptation measures due to financial constraints. Some also expressed concerns about whether younger generations would remain interested in cocoa farming under increasingly challenging conditions.

 

The study comes at a critical time for Ghana's cocoa sector. National production has declined in recent years, falling from historical averages of around 800,000 tonnes to approximately 600,000 tonnes. While several factors contribute to this trend, including pests, diseases, ageing farms, and rising production costs, farmers consistently identified climate change as a major source of growing vulnerability.

 

The researchers also found that many existing interventions, including price-based measures, have limited effectiveness when climate-related production losses continue to reduce the volume of cocoa available for sale.

 

Although initiatives such as the Living Income Differential (LID) have increased cocoa prices, many farmers continue to struggle with declining productivity and rising costs.

 

The policy brief launched at the event proposes an Eight-Point Agenda for a Producer-Centred Climate Policy. The recommendations include shifting from yield-centred policies towards producer-centred resilience, integrating climate adaptation with income support, investing in climate-smart water management, strengthening adaptation financing, improving farmer participation in decision-making, and incorporating farmer wellbeing into sustainability frameworks.

 

The researchers argue that the long-term competitiveness of Ghana's cocoa sector will increasingly depend on the resilience of its producers.

 

"Healthy and resilient farmers are the foundation of healthy and productive cocoa farms. If climate change continues to erode farmer health, labour productivity, and adaptive capacity, then cocoa production itself will become increasingly vulnerable," Dr Arhin explained.

 

Participants at the policy breakfast welcomed the findings and engaged in discussions on how government agencies, COCOBOD, the private sector, development partners, and research institutions can work together to strengthen resilience across cocoa-growing communities.

 

The study challenges conventional approaches that primarily view climate adaptation through the lens of productivity and environmental protection. Instead, it calls for a broader understanding of resilience that includes health, livelihoods, labour conditions, access to finance, water security, and social wellbeing.

 

The research was supported by the Harvard University Center for African Studies through the Motsepe Presidential Research Accelerator Fund for Africa. The broader research team includes Dr Carla Martin (Harvard University), Dr Albert Arhin (KNUST), Jose Lopez Ganem (Institute for Cocoa and Chocolate Research), Dr Amanda Berlan (University of Leicester), Richard Tetteh (KNUST), Dr Michael Ehis Odijie (University of Oxford), and Jean-Luc Kouassi (Côte d'Ivoire).

 

The researchers hope the findings will contribute to ongoing policy debates and encourage greater investment in producer resilience as a pathway to securing the future of Ghana's cocoa economy.

 

As climate pressures intensify across West Africa, the study concludes that safeguarding Ghana's cocoa future will require more than protecting cocoa farms. It will also require protecting the farmers who sustain them.

MEASURES project puts Accra under spotlight for sustainable energy strategy development

A multi-disciplinary group of experts from Ghana and Switzerland are undertaking a study to develop new methods to address gaps in energy system models for developing countries and cities.

Developing countries, like Ghana, grapple with socio-technical and economic factors rarely represented in conventional energy modeling approaches, which are often developed by and for industrialized nations. Such factors include the impacts of the informal economy, suppressed energy demand, power sector failures, and climate change on urban energy resilience and planning. Researchers in this project are working together to represent these issues in energy planning models, and to apply them to the case study city of Accra, supporting its sustainable development.

 

Accra is committed to sustainable urban planning as a signatory city within the C40 Cities and Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy frameworks. As the focal case study city within this project, the municipality can directly benefit from this work in developing their climate strategy.

However, the outcomes of this study can also help other cities around the world to apply demonstrated models and methods to their own sustainable energy strategy development.

 

The project, titled, “Energy System Modeling for the Real World: Transforming Modeling Approaches for Sustainable and Resilient Urban Development (MEASURES)”, is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and is running from 2020 until the end of 2023.

 

The project is being led by Dr. Mashael Yazdanie, a research scientist at the Urban Energy Systems Laboratory at Empa in Switzerland. Ghanaian project partners include the Department of Economics and The Brew-Hammond Energy Center at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), as well as the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR).

 

“One of the interesting things about the MEASURES project is its goal of advancing modeling methods for resilient and sustainable energy planning through international and interdisciplinary collaboration,” said Prof. George Yaw Obeng, Dean of Faculty of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, KNUST.

 

The first conference and workshop of the Swiss-Ghanaian MEASURES project was held at the KNUST in October 2022. The event brought together researchers, practitioners and experts across a wide range of fields. In addition to the partner institutes (Empa, KNUST and UENR), local attendees included the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ministry of Environment Science Technology and Innovation, Environmental Protection Agency, Electricity Company of Ghana, and Digital Earth Africa, amongst others, enabling valuable exchanges and learning opportunities.

 

"This project presents a unique opportunity to collaborate across disciplines, professions, and boundaries in order to collectively tackle one of the most urgent challenges facing humanity – that of mitigating climate change impacts on society and our planet," said Dr. Yazdanie.

 

The importance of energy system models

 

Energy system planning models are vital decision support tools. Developing cities, like Accra, are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as increased heatwaves, flooding events and rising sea levels, compared to cities in industrialized nations. Thus, maximizing their resilience is essential, and modeling tools can play a pivotal role in evaluating and developing resilient urban energy plans.

 

"Our aim is to improve energy planning models and related decision-making processes in order to support cities and nations in developing more effective sustainable and resilient energy system plans, particularly under the threat of climate change," said Dr. Yazdanie.

 

Multiple experts, including economists, climate change scientists, engineers, and energy system modelers are working together to identify synergies and integration opportunities between modeling methods.

 

“We will build upon existing open-source optimization/simulation models and demonstrate developed methods using Accra as a case study city. We aim to ensure knowledge transfer, especially to urban energy planners, modelers and researchers by sharing models, data, methods, and findings on open-access, digital platforms and through workshops,” said Dr. Yazdanie.

 

The research and knowledge generation on modeling approaches for resilient and sustainable energy planning are relevant to the development of decision-support systems that will help build resilient and sustainable energy planning practices in Ghana and beyond.

 

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

 

Sweetpotato: the next food security crop

The production of sweetpotato in Ghana is less than 20 percent of targeted production levels, mainly hindered by perception that the crop is food for poor people.

But the role of sweetpotato is becoming more important and substantial in fostering household food and nutrition diversification.

The orange-fleshed sweetpotato varieties, for instance, can contribute to combating Vitamin A Deficiency and can also serve as wheat flour substitute in processed products.

Interest groups in food and agriculture want sweetpotato to be seen as the next crop the country should be projecting, due the potentials in food security and industrial value addition, as well as its growing export demand.

“If you link up the future of potato and starch in general to the car industry, you realize that even an over production can be mopped up by the vehicle industry, because they can use most of that material to build the dashboards that you so comfortably want to sit in,” observed Joseph Faalong, a director at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

He however says there is the need to raise the productivity of potato higher, by creating interest in the business potentials of sweet potato production, especially among the youth.

“To do potato on a large scale, we need to devise mechanisms for lifting the crop. If we as researchers can look more into mechanical harvesters, machinery that can lift the crop on a large scale, then we’ll be doing a lot of justice to productivity,” he added.

The International Sweetpotato Centre (CIP), in collaboration with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is running a training of trainers’ course on “Everything You Need to Know About Sweet Potato”.

Project Coordinator, Dr. Ibok Oduro of the KNUST, noted there are business opportunities along the sweetpotato value chain; from planting to marketing and processing of the crop.

“Sweet potato gives a variety of avenues for people to create business and that is why we think the training of trainers will empower them to be able to do such things,” she said, adding breeders are developing seed varieties that are resistant to diseases and also looking at machines for peeling sweet potatoes for industrial attraction.

The Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the CSIR has developed and released 12 high yielding sweetpotato varieties, which yield 2-3 times higher than the traditional varieties.

Dr. Oduro is encouraging Ghanaians to particularly look at potato leaf production as a viable agricultural venture.

“With sweet potato, within four months to five months you harvest; so it means three times in a year, you have something to sell… the leaf is very rich in anti-oxidants,” she said.

CIP has been working to promote sweet potato in Ghana, through partnerships with local institutions on post-harvest handling, techniques in breeding systems

“Sweet potato was an orphaned crop but now with the training, we are opening the mind of people on how we can use and harness sweetpotato like other crops,” said Putri Ernawati Abidin, Project Manager at the International Potato Centre (CIP).

In Ghana, CIP has set a goal of reaching nearly 500,000 households with resilient nutritious sweetpotato by 2020.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Poultry industry receives boosts with installation of new incubators at KNUST

The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has renewed its quest to provide qualitative support to Ghana’s poultry industry.

The Department of Animal Science at the College has installed new incubators to produce day-old chicks and to aid research activities.

“KNUST being a leading technology centre will help the farmers to optimize their incubation techniques and cut down on importation,” said Dr. Jacob Alhassan Hamidu, hatchery specialists and project leader.

Ghana has a number of hatcheries but available research indicates that day-old chicks produced from these hatcheries are of low quality.

Poultry farmers therefore resort of imports from Europe and other international markets to stay competitive.

The newly commissioned Olympio Hatchery at the animal science department is expected to help reduce these imports, which cost 2-3times higher than the local chicks.

The hatchery has an initial investment of 170,000 cedis with the capacity to produce 5,000 eggs.

The facility will aid research in chick quality to reduce cost and dependence on imports as well as increase opportunities in the poultry industry.

Dr. Alhassan Hamidu said the industry will be supported with information and education to produce high quality chicks.

“If the industry takes the message that is coming from here, they are going to incubate and get higher chick quality that will put confidence in the farmers to keep buying from them… with these machines and some of the best practices that we’ve put in place, if they are applied in commercial hatcheries and farmers are buying from that, it will cut down on importation of day-old chicks,” he stated.

Poultry geneticist, Dr. Oscar Olympio, said it is high time Ghana focused on producing parent stock of day-old chicks to wane the poultry industry from imports.

“We can have our own grand-parent stock and parent stock and have commercial chicks locally bred in Ghana. We can start on a small scale and then we build up; if we need equipment, we buy them year after year, then one day we also become as big as the multinationals,” he said.

Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. William Otoo Ellis charged the animal science department to maintain and transform the hatchery to increase the benefits.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

KNUST initiates ‘chocopreneurship’ training to increase uses of cocoa

The Department of Food Science and Technology at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is expanding uses of cocoa for job creation and income generation.

A value addition training programme has been initiated, in collaboration with the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), to reduce product waste along the cocoa value chain.

The objective of the hand-made chocolate production training, under the tag of “chocopreneurship”, is to produce a new breed of entrepreneurs in the chocolate industry.

The short course in artisanal chocolate production has been instituted as an annual programme to increase opportunities and value addition to cocoa.

Training facilitator, Dr. Jacob Agbenorhevi, says unlike factory-processed chocolate products, the hand-made chocolates offer varieties in taste and packaging with competitive pricing.

“We have very few people trained in this field, so we saw the need train more people and in so doing we increase the use of the cocoa products as well as increase income generation and employability of participants,” he stated.

He added that the KNUST wants to continually partner industry to value to products to maximize economic opportunities.

“We have a chain and this chain is not just about supply but there should be value addition. So if you have something from the farmer to the traders and we do some treatment to add value to it, it will now make it the more attractive for people to buy, then it will reduce loss and reduce waste,” noted Mr. Agbenorhevi.

Trainees under the programme are offered start-up kits to begin their new chocolate production ventures.

Sylvia Kafui, one of the 14 participants in the chocopreneurship short course, says she has learnt to be artistic in making her chocolate products.

“In the past, all the chocolate bars on the market from CPC are all industrially produced and this time because they want chocolate to get to everybody, we’ve been taught how to make it with our own hands,” she said. “It’s a good business to start with; it’s not so capital intensive as we have been made to understand”.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Ghana hosts major climate research project to boost agriculture and livelihoods

Ghana is one of two countries in West Africa to host supersites for a major research to develop a comprehensive dataset for the next generation of weather and climate models.

Benin is the other country involved in the three-year project funded by the European Union at a cost of 7million euros.

Massive economic and population growth and urbanization are expected to lead to a tripling of human emissions in southern West Africa between 2000 and 2030. The impacts on human health, ecosystems, food security and the regional climate are largely unknown.

The Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) project, therefore, aims to provide “a comprehensive scientific assessment of the impacts of the projected rapid increases in anthropogenic emissions on air quality, human health, ecosystems, agricultural productivity, water availability, energy production and local to regional climate.”

The host of the project in Ghana is the Meteorology and Climate Science Unit of the Department of Physics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where an intensive field campaign is underway to assess the impact of population growth on the climate.

“Local farmers are going to get better forecast products; they are also going to have direct interactions with experts and good scientific papers and policy briefs are expected to come to inform policy,” said Dr. Leonard Amekudzi, project scientist and a climate change and atmospheric scientist.

According to him, ground-based data from the soil to the top-elm atmospheric measurement will help understand the processes that are inducing the changes in the climate system over the entire region.

Climate change is a long-term shift in the weather conditions, caused by both natural and human factors that lead to the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Arguably, the largest single source of uncertainty in the study of global climate change is the effect of aerosols on clouds.

The surface observations to be made at the supersites include a ceilometer to measure cloud top and base heights, a sounding system for launching balloons with radiosondes, a weather station and other instruments to measure surface radiometric properties and atmospheric composition.

Dr. Barbara Brooks of the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science explains the research activity will ultimately lead to reduced uncertainties in climate predictions which impact on agricultural production, health and livelihoods.

“We do the measurement, we do the science; we then try to persuade the people who can actually made decisions – politicians – to do something, to put policies in place, so they can mitigate any changes that you see,” she said.

Climate change has emerged as the biggest global management challenge, affecting livelihoods, environment and economies.

Climate finance and technology transfer remain critical for vulnerable economies in Africa and other developing economies to survive the future.

The World Bank has warned that the current level of climate adaptation funding which is insufficient could trigger extreme poverty in Africa by 2030.

Without coping mechanisms in place, there will be lower crop yields, higher food prices and negative health impacts from climate change.

The comprehensive dataset from the proposed field campaign under the DACCIWA project provides a wide range of modeling activities that will help improve the monitoring of climate and atmospheric compositions.

The most important goal is to inform local stakeholders about the effects of rapid population growth on human and ecosystem health in southern West Africa.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Research community builds momentum for climate action after COP21

The historic Paris Agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) last December has set the tone for the implementation of nationally determined contributions submitted to the UNFCCC.

From this year, countries would be expected to put their climate proposals into action – major areas include adaptation, mitigation and finance.

In sub-Saharan Africa, natural and human systems are under the threat of climate change.

There are challenges to the continent’s dominant rain-fed agriculture, sustainability of urban areas, overstretched health services, water resources management and energy resources.

Research findings indicate that the length of growing period of most crops in expected to drop below 90 days in the Sahel region, heightening the insecurity of agricultural productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

In Ghana for instance, food insecurity is predicted with a decline in yields of 5-25% between 2000 and 2050 and a projected revenue drop of 17-32%.

This a major issue requiring the attention of researchers, policy makers and politicians.

“Improving the understanding of the vulnerability of socially disadvantaged rural and urban dwellers, and critical social services will require sound climate change and adaptation policies,” says Prof. William Otoo Ellis, Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

He observed climate change awareness is often missing in sectoral developmental policies and strategies as “some policies to the benefit of one sector have been to the detriment of the other”.

A research centre within the KNUST, West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), is hosting a consultative workshop on this important national and global issue of climate change.

It provides an opportunity to review existing knowledge gap in the subject, build research networking capacity and ultimately provide climate change research update for policy action.

Prof. Samuel Nii Odai, Director of KNUST WASCAL-CCLU, says the workshop is exploring Ghana’s priority issues in climate change, research agenda in the short to long term and public-private collaborations.

“We know government is doing its part but we believe that as a university we need to take that initiative… if these things are not properly covered in terms of generating new knowledge for where we live, that is in Ghana and to put these in our policy briefs, what it means is that government agencies will not even understand what is happening and how to respond,” he noted.

Prof. Odai says the workshop has the advantage of drawing inputs from the Paris Agreement for local implementation of action plans.

“We are at the downstream so we are benefitting from the knowledge generated in other countries. We are actually riding on knowledge that has been made available; we are going to work on concrete information which have been deliberated on and more synthesized,” he said.

He added that it has become critical for the country to be ready for the worse scenario of climate change in the near future.

Prof. Jerome Omotosho of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Change at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, has charged governments in Africa to commit resource to research and development, if the continent is to win in tackling the phenomenon of climate change.

He says the threats posed by climate change to local economies require substantial increase in budgetary allocation to tackle environmental degradation.

“No research, no development,” he said.

KNUST Summer School proffers solutions to develop tertiary education

Ghana’s former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, wants public universities empowered to enter into partnerships for commercial activities that generate funding for their operations.

The changing times, he noted, demand that the country’s universities are provided with the right policy framework and assured of the predictability in the use of their resources.

“There is no reason why KNUST cannot partner with some private sector enterprises to develop commercial activities to which they can lend the science and research capabilities and share in the gains and profits that these enterprises make and the right policy environment be assured that they can retain the resources that they make from such investments,” said Prof. Botchwey.

He was speaking at the 5^th Summer School of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), organized by the Quality Assurance and Planning Unit.

The four-day event is on the theme: “Sustainable Development of Tertiary Institutions in Ghana Amidst Economic and Security Challenges”.

Ongoing reforms in the country’s public sector have an impact in the educational sector – including financial constraints, delay in release of subventions, embargo on employment, issues of utilities, lack of research funding, increasing student-to-staff ratio and staff capacity development.

In the midst of the changing environment, Vice Chancellor of KNUST, Prof. William Otoo Ellis, says the new order requires that institutions are developed in tandem with strategic mandate without compromising on quality.

Participants at the Summer School are expected to explore, learn and share good experiences amidst economic and security challenges facing tertiary education.

“Obviously we cannot continue to do things the same way as we use to; as stakeholders we should find ways of turning these constraints or seeming challenges into opportunities,” stated Prof. Ellis.

The event is to equip staff of the university with practical insights to sustainably develop the various institutions.

According to Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, there is a correlation between tertiary education and national development, emphasizing that funding remains the single most critical condition for Ghana to establish a viable and sustainable tertiary educational system that responds to the needs of development.

“If the tertiary education system is to be sustainable, it must be differentiated, it must have high quality,” he noted.

Fundamental principles to achieve this include public funding that facilitates tertiary educational system which promotes the overall national interest whilst the funding approach is aligned to the goals of the tertiary education systems.

Prof. Botchwey believes a policy and incentive framework that is clear, transparent and consistent will enable universities generate funds internally and assured of autonomy in use of the funds.

He says universities should develop new programmes that leverage the particular expertise and area of focus of the university itself.

“The solution to sustainability in the end lies with the innovative and creative ways that the universities themselves can device to raise resources,” he observed.

KNUST Central Lab to support research activities of industries

Local industries can access a modern science laboratory at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to enhance the research and development of new products.

The KNUST Central Laboratory is equipped to support research in the pharmaceutical, engineering, biomedical, agrochemical and chemical disciplines.

The facility allows for the common use of expensive and complex cutting-edge research instrumentation by students and faculty as well as researchers at home and abroad.

Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. William Otoo Ellis, explains the Concept of a central lab is a shared network of research facilities that brings state of the art equipment to the doorstep of scientists of varied backgrounds – both basic and applied sciences.

The motive is to meet standards in teaching, training and research comparable to any such facility in any part of the world.

Prof. Ellis says the facility will support industry, especially those in pharmaceuticals, herbal medicine, food and agriculture, mining and environmental related sectors as well as regulatory bodies such us the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The project started in 2012 with the Jos Hansen and Soehne Group of Germany aiding with a six million euro research equipment.

Chief Executive of Champion Divine Clinic, Dr. Kwaku Frimpong, partnered the University with a 25% funding stake in the construction of the building/laboratory complex to house the specialized equipment.

The “Divine Champion Building” was constructed by Berock Ventures Ghana at an estimated cost of Gh1.25million – the University contributed the 75% of the cost from its internally generated fund.

Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovatiion (MESTI), Mahama Ayariga, has lauded the initiative and observed the need for national research institutions to also have centralized laboratories to create avenues for collaborations and also for cost-effective and efficient operations.

“We should have central laboratories at least in every regional capital that services every research institutions, so we all converge at the same place and carry out the research,” he said.

The Minister said the country would have to leverage on the application of science and technology by “indigenizing” technologies to resolve most of the socio-economic challenges.

“We are importing too much technology and it’s costing our economy so much,” he observed. “Until we indigenize a lot of that technology and produce it ourselves and even take a further step of innovating and also exporting technology to other people, we’ll continue to face many of the challenges that our economy is confronted with”.

 

Managing Director of Jos Hansen and Soehne, Burkhard Wollborn, noted that the benefits of establishing the Central Laboratory “will for a long time be a backbone in the future development of the University. I am sure that many talented students who are honoured by studying at KNUST would become future human assets to this great country to help developing it into the status where it actually belongs to”.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

Ghana to get bio-repository facility to aid research in tropical diseases

Ghana is not out of the woods yet in terms of the country’s disease burden as recent data shows the impact of health problems is higher than estimated.

The Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) has therefore committed to develop a critical mass of research scientists to conduct research into tropical and related diseases that are of national and regional importance.

Current research activities at the KCCR include malaria, tuberculosis, onchocerciasis, buruli ulcer and elephantiasis.

“What we are seeking to do is to keep on finding some answers; so for example on buruli ulcer, how best can we improve on the treatment?” quizzed Dr. Ellis Owusu-Dabo, Scientific Director of the KCCR.

Together with its partners, the KCCR is putting up a cold house to create a bio-repository of human and biological samples for teaching and research. The project, to be completed before end of 2015, is funded by the VW Foundation at a cost of €250,000.

The building will house freezers and fridges with the state-of-the-art facilities to help track diseases and populations in answering important research questions.

According to Dr. Owusu-Dabo, the cold house will operate in accordance with standard rules and regulations which will be stipulated by the Ethics and Institutional Board Committees.

“It’s good to have a repository where samples are kept, research questions are raised and then the answers sought on the basis of the creation of the bio-repository,” he noted. “So when we do have for example sputum samples, is there a way that we can go back and look at community X and say that on the basis of the samples we do have, community X is likely to be prone to resistance strains of tuberculosis?”

The research works of the KCCR are largely aligned to the research agenda of Ghana – the Centre currently working with the Ghana Health Service to conduct the first-ever drug resistance study for pulmonary tuberculosis in the country.

The Centre hosts the African Research Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases and also serves as the research wing of the College of Health Sciences at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. Otoo Ellis is enthused at the establishment of the cold house facility at the KCCR.

“With time, you need to continuously upgrade your system; the cold house is one of the critical things that we need because you need to be able to store your samples, keep them in a state where you don’t have variations,” he said.

The University has the core business of teaching, research and service and entrepreneurship training.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh 

AGRA boosts African seed market with a plant breeding initiative

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is implementing an initiative to increase availability of a new set of plant breeders who can better service Africa’s seed sector.

The Improved Msc in Cultivar Development for Africa (IMCDA) program has a revised practical training and internship approach to enable students to be more productive and useful to the private and public sectors.

The Program will train 90 students in three regional training hubs in Africa – Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), Uganda (Makerere University) and South Africa (University of Kwazulu Natal).

The Ghana component of the initiative was launched at KNUST, where 30 students from Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger will be trained.

AGRA is providing a grant of $2.67million to offer full scholarship to students over a five year period.

The agric sector continues to face challenges of improved quality seed for improved yields.

According to Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. Otoo Ellis, certified seed usage and marching applications of other simple agricultural technologies can lead to higher crop yields.

“Therefore an increase in the number of plant breeders who can develop improved varieties with significant genetic gains quickly, in either the private seed companies or the public sector using modern data management and breeding methodologies, can result in higher crop yields and improved incomes for our resource poor farmers,” he stated.

The program, he believes, will empower the KNUST to train industry-ready graduates to produce improved varieties more quickly and efficiently in order to address the “dwindling productivity of staple food crops due to the inability of unimproved local varieties to adequately tolerate emerging biotic and abiotic constraints”.

He believes KNUST is adequately positioned to address problems of smallholder farmers in crop production.

AGRA has been funding other programs in soil science and seed systems at the university.

Dr. Rufaro Madakadze, Programme Officer at AGRA, the program should be beneficial to farmers and the private sector agricultural actors.

“We are beginning to realize that providing scientists for the public sector without some for the private sector does not work,” she stated. “The whole point of breeding is to develop a variety of cultivar that the farmers will adopt, that the farmers can grow and improve their yields.”

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh