West africa centre for crop improvement (WACCI)
University of Ghana Legon, Ghana edanquah@wacci.edu.gh www.wacci.edu.gh.com
Key Personnel
Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Ph.D, Director and Professor | Martin Agyei Yeboah, Ph.D, Plant, Breeder | Eugene Terry, Advisory Board Chair
Company Profile
Partnership between University of Ghana and Cornell University (USA) to train plant breeders. | Four-year Ph.D. program. | Established 2007.
The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) was established in 2007 as a 10-year program to train plant breeders to improve the indigenous crops that feed the people of the West and Central African sub-region including sorghum, millet, cassava, yam, plantain, cocoyam, taro, bambara, groundnut, and cowpea.
The four-year educational curriculum includes one-year of intensive classroom study at the University of Ghana, Legon. Following successful completion of course work and a comprehensive exam, students return to their home countries for the research phase of the program.
During the last four months of the final year, students return to Legon to compete their research dissertations.
WACCI Mission
The program’s mission is to equip plant breeders with knowledge and field experience to lead the conversion of genetic and molecular discoveries into innovative solutions that will benefit agriculture in West and Central Africa. “Our vision is to be the foremost center for training plant breeders for west and central Africa,” says Program Director Eric Yirenkyi Danquah. “Persistent low productivity has hindered access to food in this region. It is estimated that most of the crops which feed and clothe the people of the region are realizing only 20% of their yield potential.”
Program Support
Major funding for the program comes from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Nairobi, Kenya. From 2007 through 2013, WACCI received grants totalling USD 13.6. AGRA grants totaled $11.1 Million.
Through the Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Nextgen Cassava Project, WACCI accessed over $500,000 to train cassava plant breeders. WACCI is also collaborating with Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, to develop a functional gene discovery platform for sorghum improvement. WACCI has accessed $95,000 from the Purdue grant to screen a mutant population of sorghum developed at Purdue.
Program Progress
The WACCI program made history by graduating eight Ph.D. students in a single discipline – plant breeding – on one day in July 2013. Currently, 59 candidates are enrolled in plant breeding.
“We need political will to get the training right. We cannot adopt a partisan approach to this because this is too important to toy with. We have far too long paid lip service to agriculture,” says Danquah.
“Our scientists can think like any other plant breeders anywhere in the world. We have positioned ourselves to partner with world class institutions to take our
Add new comment