Major local food crops face extinction in Ghana – Scientist
The introduction of exotic breeds of food crops has put some major Ghanaian food crops on the verge of extinction, the Director of Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), Dr Kenneth E. Danso, has said.
According to him, the problem had been compounded by the effects of climate change and the use of arable land for construction purposes.
Addressing the second in the series of lectures to mark the 50th anniversary celebration of the GAEC, Dr Danso said, local food crops such as “Afase” and “Ebo Eduonum” and wide varieties of maize and cassava were facing extinction.
His lecture was on the topic: “GAEC’s contribution to sustainable agricultural development and food security in Ghana.”
To address the threat, Dr Danso suggested that Ghana should establish more genetic plant pools to conserve those crop varieties, modify the crops through biotechnology and nuclear agriculture to mutate and preserve the varieties as well as increase their yields for local consumption and export.
“Farmers must not abandon their local varieties for foreign crops,” Dr Danso advised.
Through expertise and years of assiduous work, he said, the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Institute of the commission had developed an antidote to the fruit-flies that affected most mango plantations leading to the ban on export of mangoes to some European countries.
In June, this year, there were reports that the international mango market community, which includes Europe, South Africa and the United States, had branded the West Africa region as a fruit-fly endemic zone, and thereby refused to patronise mangoes from countries in the zone – including Ghana.
Exported mango containers were in most cases rejected at the entry ports of the international markets due to fruit-fly infestation and other sanitary issues.
According to Dr Danso, the institute had developed Protein Base Bait to solve the problem of fruit flies which caused damage of up to 80 per cent of exportable fruits. This has also been complemented with the introduction of sterile insects for the control of tsetse fly and maize borers.
The Protein Base Bait that the institute has developed costs GH¢12 per unit while same imported quantity costs GH¢70.
Dr Danso called for support to expand the project and also to educate Ghanaian fruit producers to purchase them to halt the increasing menace of fruit flies.
Dr Danso said for the love of the work and due to lack of funding, scientists had been forced to use personal resources for research programmes and appealed to the government and other organisations to come to the aid of the institute.
He called for the establishment of irrigation systems for the institute so that when the rains failed, the institute would be able to undertake year round farming as part of the research work.
Source: Daily Graphic