News

Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) and also a Professor of Plant Genetics at the Department of Crop Science at the University of Ghana has been appointed member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded AfricaYam Project (AYP) based at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria.

A three-day orientation programme has been held for the 2016 doctoral students enrolled on the PhD Plant Breeding Programme of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI). The 2016 graduate students, who are so far, the largest cohort enrolled on the programme, are from 9 African countries namely Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Malawi, Togo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia and Burkina Faso.

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) came out top of the table of 19 World Bank funded Africa Centres of Excellence (ACEs), in resource mobilization and overall performance at the opening session of the Fourth ACEs project workshop in Cotonou, Benin. This was the outcome of the evaluation of the ACEs, presented by Mrs. Adeline Addy, the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist of AAU following the first year of implementation of the project.

A final year AGRA sponsored PhD student at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Mrs. Dorcas Ibitoye Olubunmi has placed third in the final round, PhD category of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and The Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) Research Paper Competition.

The 2011 West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana, Legon students have returned to the Centre upon completion of their research work in their home institutions to complete theses for submission.

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana, Legon has launched an innovative MPhil Seed Science and Technology (SST) programme in response to the growing need for experts and professionals and a well- structured seed industry in the West African sub-region.

A two-day workshop for the five World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence (ACEs) in agriculture, dubbed “Workshop for the Agriculture Education Front-runners in West Africa: ACEs Learning Experience at WACCI” on the theme: “The march towards food security in Africa” has taken place recently.  52 pa

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), a constituent unit of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences has donated a 4 x 4 Toyota Prado to the College of Basic and Applied Sciences (CBAS).

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, Legon in collaboration with the Alliance for Agricultural R&D for Food Security (comprised of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), the Australian International Food Security Research Centre

The third cohort of nine students and a fourth cohort student of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), graduated from the University of Ghana, Legon, with PhDs in Plant Breeding on July 24, 2015 at the Great Hall of the University.

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana has held a three-day workshop from July 14 -16, 2015 at the Volta Hotel, Akosombo on the theme “Transforming WACCI into a sustainable Centre of Excellence for Training Plant Breeders and Seed Scientists for the future of food security in Africa”.

The Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Professor Eric Y. Danquah, has commended the External Review Panel that was commissioned in January 2015 to review WACCI’s operations since inception in 2007.

Food security has for a long time focused on higher productivity of staple food crops in Africa to the neglect of the nutrient-rich vegetables.

Ms. Ibitoye, Dorcas Olubunmi, a cohort 4 WACCI student, was among twelve students who participated in the 2015 Nestlé Conference on Planting Seeds for the Future of Food in Lausanne, Switzerland from June 2 - 3, 2015.

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), has launched a Vegetables Innovation Laboratory (VIL) as part of efforts to beef up vegetable production and food security in Ghana and the sub-region.