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Dr. Ernest Baafi

I never thought of becoming a Plant Breeder. An introduction to plant breeding course taught by Professor Safo Kantankain my first year got me interested in plant breedingErnest Says. Ernestwho is married with two childrenobtained his BSc in Agriculture and MSc in Plant Breeding from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)KumasiGhana. His undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations were on the screening and evaluation of some elite local cassava and GXE interactions on some major agronomic and rheological properties of cassava respectively. Ernest worked as a teachingresearch assistant at KNUST for his national service and later moved on to the Crops research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial ResearchFumesuaGhana. He worked on root and tuber crops (cassavasweetpotatococoyam and colocassia) and pineapple. Ernest was part of a team that developed and released two cassava varieties (IFAD and NKABOM) and a sweetpotato variety Teksantom in Ghana. He has six refereed journal publications to his credit and has authored and co-authored a number of technical reports and flyers.My enrollment in WACCI s PhD programme will broaden my scope on sweetpotato breeding. This training will enhance my expertise in coming out with new varieties of sweetpotato. I believe my contribution will play a major role in alleviating poverty and food insecurity in Ghana and beyond in this era of climate change he says.