A group of 20 Pan African Journalists have visited the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) to acquaint themselves with developments at the Centre. The pressmen from several countries across Sub-Saharan Africa were received by the Director of the Centre.
The Director, Prof. Eric Y. Danquah, in a presentation ran the journalists through the history of the University of Ghana, the rationale behind the establishment of WACCI, the PhD programme at WACCI and the breeding projects at WACCI. The Director said WACCI has enrolled 54 students from 8 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. He added the first cohort of the Centre graduated in July, 2013 and have returned to their respective research institutions. The graduates of WACCI are all working on indigenous crops that feed the people of Africa. The impact of their work will feed generations in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Director said WACCI was established to train African plant breeders in Africa to work on the indigenous crops that feed the people of Africa. In addition, he said the Centre was a panacea to the problem of brain drain in the sub-region. He added that WACCI was in partnerships with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Generation Challenge Program (GCP), the West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP), Kirkhouse Trust, UK, VW Foundation, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Seed Companies, Purdue University, USA, Cornell University, USA and 18 National Agricultural Research Centre.
The Director also said the Centre has been selected as one of 15 Centres of Excellence for training plant breeders and seed scientists and technologists in Africa under the World Bank ACE project. Under this project, WACCI will receive about $8 million from the World Bank to scale up training of plant breeders and train seed scientists and technologists in an innovative new programme at the MPhil level. The Director challenged the pressmen to champion success stories in Africa to give a good picture about the promise of education in Agriculture in Africa.
Looking ahead, the Director said governments in Africa must develop the political will to fund agriculture. He said there was the need for governments and donors to pay attention to funding agriculture. He added that education and research is a smart development investment and a remedy to most of Africa’s challenges and mentioned a $30 million endowment fund in the offing.
Responding to a question on how WACCI plans to ensure its train graduates remain in Africa by a journalist from the Ghana News Agency, the Director said to be eligible for admission at WACCI, you must be working at a National Agricultural Research Institute, hence the graduates go back to their research institutions to apply the skills they have gained at WACCI.
The Director of Communications and Public Affairs of AGRA, Ms. Sylvia Mwichuli, who was present at the meeting, said AGRA decided to fund the WACCI programme because of the human capacity challenge in plant breeding. She commended the Director and his team for the excellent results. She added WACCI was a very important project that has the potential to address the challenge of food and nutritional insecurity in Africa.