Plant Breeders Bill will fight poverty – Scientists

Ghanaian scientists have indicated that the Plant Breeders Bill (PBB), currently before Ghana’s parliament, will contribute to combating poverty among farmers in the country when passed into law.

Professor Walter Sandow Alhassan, former Director General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has noted farmers in the country need improved crop varieties to engage in large-scale, commercial farming. Therefore, when the bill is passed, it will motivate scientists to speed up breeding of improved varieties.

“This bill is an important measure to combating poverty in our country. Our farmers desperately need access to improved varieties of our staple crops,” he said in a statement released by a group of scientists making a case to parliament to reactivate the passage of PBB.

He added: “This is essential if we are to continue to modernise agriculture.”

Prof Alhassan condemned the activities of “anti-development” NGOs who, he said, prefer to promote the continuation of subsistence agriculture and associated rural poverty.

The petition to parliament pointed out that Ghana was at risk of falling behind its competitors in the region without a plant breeders’ protection regime. It said eight other countries – Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe – have already passed a PBB. Kenya has registered hundreds of new plant varieties, which contrasts with the slow release of plant varieties in Ghana.

Another scientist, Prof Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) of the University of Ghana, indicated in his comment accompanying the petition to the Speaker of Parliament that: “If the development of new varieties in Ghana is not underpinned by science and technology, the country will not attain food and nutrition security in our lifetime”.

“Passage of the Ghana Plant Breeders Bill will encourage investments for the development of superior varieties of staple crops urgently needed in farmers’ fields to spark a green revolution in the country. Let us support the Ghana Plant Breeders Bill,” he added.

Dr Hans Adu-Dapaah, a renowned plant breeder and former director of the CSIR-CRI remarked: “Breeding takes a long time and a lot of resources to develop varieties. Efforts of breeders have to be recognised and rewarded. This will encourage development of more improved varieties tolerant to diseases, pests, heat, and drought, for use by farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change.”