To make Ghana self-sufficient in food production, a key research scientist has stated that the nation must cease importing seeds and instead invest in local seed development.
This would allow the nation to achieve food sufficiency and go to the next stage, according to Prof. Marian D. Quain, Deputy Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), who made the statement.
"We have been importing hybrid seeds, as well as seeds for tomatoes, corn, and everything else we plant."
"However, it will benefit us if we stop the imports and make investments in domestic seed production," the woman remarked.
"Agricultural varieties that have been produced to the research level are available at the agricultural research institutes.
It is known as "breeder seed."
The uppermost seed is a breeder seed.
You can provide it to private individuals for foundation seed and then certified seed after breeder seed.
They have produced some of the hybrid seeds we seek.
As a research group, "we don't have the funds to mass multiply or propagate and get a lot of the seeds to go across the country to plant everywhere," she continued.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Prof. Quain claimed that the nation was not paying enough attention to agriculture, crops, and crop varieties. He added that if the nation did, it could stop importing seeds, have enough food for its people, and have enough to export in order to earn foreign currency.
hybrid plants
She said that the Crop Research Institute of the council had created a hybrid tomato that performed well and even outperformed the much-discussed Burkina tomato, but the breeder had not been able to make enough types for the entire nation owing to a lack of funding.
Although the breeder had gone back to the drawing board to make sure she produced a hybrid that would do well in various regions of the nation, Prof. Quain, a famous biotechnologist with experience in tissue culture, claimed there were no finances to assist her in mass production.
Where is the money to help a breeder like that? If you take maize, hybrid maize has been created, but there is not enough funding to manufacture enough seed to spread it.
We are the caretakers of certain crops, such as yam, plantain, cassava, and cocoyam.
How much money have we invested in studying these crops? she enquired.
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