Farmers and Seed Producers in Ashanti, Bono and Ahafo Regions agree to partner with CSIR-Crops Research Institute.
The Crops Research Institute hosted a group of farmers and seed producers from the Ashanti, Bono and Ahafo regions to establish a collaboration with the CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) at its Fumesua campus to enable them gain access to improved crop varieties and technologies offered by the Institute.
The collaboration was formed on May 17, 2024, at CSIR-CRI at a meeting with Dr. Jonas Osei Adu, the Development Manager for the West and Central African Council for Agriculture Research and Development (CORAF).
Dr. Jonas stated that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss potential partnership engagements with CRI stakeholders for the scaling of the Institute’s technologies and how to create businesses out of them.
Welcome address
In his opening remarks, the Director of CSIR-CRI, Prof. Moses Brandford Mochiah expressed gratitude to the farmers and seed producers for honoring the invitation and stated that CORAF has adopted an initiative called Agriculture Technology Park (ATP) where technologies are displayed for stakeholders.
The Director made a presentation on the vision, mission, mandate and technologies developed by the Institute since its establishment. He promised the farmers of the Institute’s readiness in making improved varieties available to them and urged them to adopt and used our technologies for the success of the consortium and the development of the country.
The Agriculture Technology Park Manager and Coordinator of the iREACH project, Prof. Emmanuel Otoo disclosed that, the idea of the Technology Park was to help stakeholders visit and partner with the Institute on our marketable technologies.
He stated that the project had already established two Technology Parks for the previous years and will also establish Parks this year to make the Institute technologies available for partnership.
The Intellectual Property Right Coordinator and a Senior Research Scientist of the Institute, Dr. Hillary Mireku Botey made a presentation on crop variety licensing arrangements.
In his presentation, he touched on the current status of Ghana’s Seed delivery system, the process and criteria of crop variety licensing system among others.
Dr. Botey explained that, the crop variety licensing would help Research Scientists make improved seeds available and accessible to farmers and seed producers.
Author: Linda Agyeman
