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Ghana can produce large quantities of
agricultural products for export – Prof. Sackey
Accra, March 5, Ghanadot/GNA – Ghana could benefit from
large quantities of planting materials for commercial
farmers and out-growers as well as export of agricultural
products if she adopted “Tissue Culture Technology” as a
method of producing food crops, Professor Sammy Sackey,
Associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the
University of Ghana said on Thursday.
Tissue Culture Technology is a process where the embryos of
plants are put in an enabling environment to enable them to
grow. Using this technology enables plants to grow faster in
large quantities and plants are disease free.
Prof. Sackey made this known when the Parliamentary Select
Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs visited the
Biochemistry Products Ghana Limited, a facility where tissue
culture technology is used to produce food crops
particularly plantain suckers for sale to farmers.
He said the project was started with the objective of
developing innovations for enhanced agricultural
productivity with a focus on plants like plantain, bananas,
yam, cocoyam, cassava and pineapples.
Prof. Sackey explained that, using the technology in
agriculture helped in the rapid multiplying of plants in
large numbers, crops were available all year round and were
disease free.
“With the technology we can produce about a million suckers
in a year, we have been able to produce eight varieties of
plantain, including onniaba,” he said and added that it
could also be applied in forestry, especially re-development
of indigenous trees
Prof. Sackey called for more support in terms of funding to
enable the company to do further research and development.
The members of the Select Committee, led by Mr Paul Collins
Appiah-Ofori, Member of Parliament for Asikuma Odoben Brakwa,
expressed excitement about the project pointing out that
such a project on a large scale could help solve the
unemployment problem of the youth.
“The project is a way to develop the rural communities by
encouraging the youth into farming. It is an example of
using science and technology for development.”
Mr Appiah Ofori noted that Ghana’s competitive advantage was
in agriculture and there was a need for various governments
to take agricultural development seriously.
“One problem we have as a country is that we import more
than we export and we can only export agricultural products
more,” he said.
He pledged the committee’s full support for the project and
said: “we will do everything humanly possible to help this
project grow.”
GNA
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