Improved seeds hold answer to Africa’s food challenge – Owusu

Improved seeds rather than huge machinery are what Africa needs to become self-sufficient in food production, Ghana’s minister for food and agriculture said on Wednesday.

In his address at the 10th Anniversary of the West African Center for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Owusu Afriyie Akoto said the government’s “Planting for Food and Jobs” will distribute improved seeds to 200,000 Ghanaian farmers from this planting season to boost food production.

“WACCI is doing so well because the research that it is doing, the capacity that it is building for researchers to go out there and improve varieties and so on, therein lies agricultural future of Africa and nothing else. It has nothing to do with tractors and big ideas,” Akoto said.

“Just the small seeds we improved which has got the potential to increase yield, that is what it’s all about,” the minister said.

WACCI was set up at the University of Ghana in 2007 to train plant breeders over a 10-year period to produce improved seeds for Africa.

In Ghana, the maize varieties yield between 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare, but WACCI said with its new varieties farmers can produce as much as 10 tonnes of maize per hectare.

The minister projected that if with just 11 percent of maize farmers using improved seed in Ghana, the country will be self-sufficient in maize.

Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana Ebenezer Oduro Owusu cited statistics to predict that about 320 million people would go hungry by 2025 if urgent steps were not taken on food security.

Moreover, he said while great progress had been made globally in agricultural development, the untapped agricultural potentials in sub-Saharan Africa has rather contributed to extreme poverty and deteriorated food and nutrition security with over 240 million people going hungry.

Owusu said initiatives such as WACCI were therefore important in training the scientists who will help the continent overcome the food security challenge. Enditem

Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh

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