Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture, John Dumelo, has underscored the need for heavy investments in local research and development in the agriculture sector.
He observes successive governments have failed to dedicate adequate funding to the sector to facilitate scientific research that would enhance productivity and ensure improved food security.
According to him, the country’s agricultural sector can only thrive efficiently if more funds are channeled to the sector for tailor-made research.
Touring the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research as part of his visits to institutions in the Ashanti region under the Feed Ghana project, Mr. Dumelo stressed the de-politicization of the agriculture sector.
“Every country before you take your Agric serious, you must take your research serious. You can come up with slogans and so forth, if research and development is taken out, it’s pretty much a cos 90 job. We have to be efficient and in Ghana we have to be efficient. It’s not really about the size of the land, but rather how many tons one can get from an acre,” he noted.
The deputy sector minister has been touring the facility to be abreast with the research activities by local scientists as part of the Feed Ghana project – which seeks to promote agricultural productivity by institutions including government institutions and religious bodies.
The team of researchers led by the Director of the research institute exposed the minister and his delegation to a variety of enhanced crops developed to support the government’s initiative.
“All the varieties that they have are something that if well invested in can solve most of our problems instead of importation of seeds. They need to be adequately funded. We need to be intentional about research and development for us to move the agricultural space forward,” Mr. Dumelo noted.
Local researchers have over the years called for more investments into the scientific and research community to churn out works that would enhance the agriculture rather than foreign investments that usually are specific to the donors.
Director of the CSIR-CRI, Prof. Maxwell Darko Asante reiterated their commitment to provide technical expertise to achieve the goals for the Feed Ghana project.
“We are ready to provide technical backstopping for all those institutions that are under the project,” he said.