CSIR-CRI Launches the iREACH Project to Boost Crop Adaptation Food and Nutrition Security

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI), on Friday, 7th October 2022, officially launched the iREACH Project as a subsystem to promote food security and viable agricultural practices in Ghana.

The Innovative Research and Extension Advisory Center Hub (iREACH) is a partnership between the CSIR- Crops Research Institute, the University of Kansas, the West and Central Africa Research Council and Development (CORAF), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The project aims to demonstrate commercially available agricultural technologies in the West African regions to increase crop value chain adoption and enhance food security.

Stakeholders will be trained on a total of 21 agricultural technologies in Kumasi and Tamale over a one-year period. Farmers, agricultural extension workers, seed companies, suppliers of agricultural inputs, international organizations, teachers, students, and the government are among those who will benefit from this program.

At the project’s inauguration at CSIR-CRI Fumesua, Professor Moses Mochiah, the Director of CSIR-CRI, said that the Institute aspires to be a Center of Excellence for innovation in agricultural research for development.

He stated that, the CSIR-CRI was working to create and disseminate technologies that would allow for high, sustainable crop and food production in industrial settings.

The institute has, over the years, strived to create the best agricultural technologies, and the iReach Project is one of the ways the CSIR-CRI seeks to achieve this.

The iReach Project which leverages on partnerships with international organizations to deliver conducted agricultural research to farmers to make food systems in Africa sustainable is spearheaded by Professor Emmanuel Otoo, a Chief Research Scientist of the CSIR-Crops Research Institute.

List of contributors: Bernard Sakyiamah, Augustine Ofosu, Peter Amankwaah, Enoch Osei Tutu, David Kow Amo, Patricia Konadu Mensah, Enoch Bobie Agyemang