Use locally produced flour for bakery, CSIR tells bakers

Agona-Nkwanta (W/R), July 21, GNA 97 Dr Nanam Dziedzoave, a Research Scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of the Food Research Institute (CSIR-FRI), has called for the need for Ghanaian bakers to patronize locally produced flour.

He said last year the CSIR-FRI developed cassava, sweet potato, cowpea and corn flours as suitable substitutes for wheat flour in bakery and pastry products.

Dr Dziedzoave, who is the head of the use of alternative flours baking project, said the development of the flour would facilitate the absorption of the national surplus of roots and tubers crops and generate more income for local farmers.

Addressing bakers in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region at a day's workshop on the use of alternative flours for baking, Dr Dziedzoave said the project was designed to develop the capacity of bakers and matrons in the country.

The workshop is being conducted in Mfantseman, Dangme East and the Ahanta West districts in the Central, Greater Accra and Western regions respectively for selected bakers and matrons.

Dr Dziedzoave said in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty by half in 2015, the World Bank designed the Africa Action Plan (AAP) as a centre piece of its strategy to help Africa and its regional groupings such as ECOWAS achieve the MDGs. More