Water for Food Production project launched at Fumesua

Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture

Water for Food Production (WFP) project meant to ensure efficient use of water to increase yields in tomato and rice productions in the country has been launched.

It is aimed at delivering innovative solutions to pressing challenges with the use of water and its safety in Africa especially, Ghana and Nigeria.

It is being undertaken by the Crop Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-CRI) in partnership with Lancaster University in the United Kingdom (UK).

The four-year project being funded by the UK government with 1.5 billion pounds from UK Aid, a subsidiary of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) major project called Recirculate.

At a research review meeting held here at Fumesua, near Kumasi, the leader of the WFP and a research scientist at CRI, Dr Stephen Yeboah, said the role of CRI in the WFP project was to develop water in nutrient management technologies that would help increase crop yields and reduce excess use of water in nutrients.

Dr Yeboah indicated that, the WFP project would ensure that the technologies that would be developed for farmers to increase yields in tomatoes and rice production would protect the environment as the technology would measure the greenhouse gas emissions.

He said Recirculate was a collaboration between CRI, Lancaster University, Water and Industrial Research, University of Benin in Nigeria, among other institutions in Africa.

According to Prof. Paul, the Recirculate project would create opportunities for research scientists in Ghana to build networks with their counterparts in other African countries in order to allow them meet the water and sewage challenges across the continent.

He added that there was the need for African countries to value human waste as a resource for energy production and by so doing, it would inform their decisions to dispose them off properly to protect the environment.

FROM FAUSTINA KWABEA OSEI, FUMESUA

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