‘Hidden’ crops research treasure

It is so much like us, as nation and people. All the answers to our development questions are with us. Yet we close our eyes, ignore everything and beg others to ask questions on our behalf and provide answers on their behalf.

When I was asked to write a comment in the visitors’ book, I simply wrote ‘Revealing.’ To me, the wonders I saw at the Crop Research Institute of the CSIR Open Day on Friday, July 20, 2017, is solution to WHATEVER our unemployment problem is and yet we have unreasonable unemployment everywhere.

People must have been wondering what the chief in golden sandals standing in the Crops Research field was fretting about. I was telling my Unit Committee chairman to ensure he would bus all the unemployed (especially the young girls/women and boys/men) to the place without delay. I saw seeking positive relief from our community’s unemployment problem all there.

Some onlookers appeared more worried about this maverick chief being derelict in tradition and custom wandering all over the place. His sun protecting umbrella was tucked under the armpit of his ahenkwaa instead of shielding him from the burning sun. Those onlookers had no idea about how enthused the chief was about the tour and how he wished so much would come out of it.

After touring only part of the CRI facility and seeing and realising the massive potential of the conversion of already established research results, the potential in the efforts of the scientists to break the unemployment stranglehold on the motherland was evident.

My humble solution to the unemployment problem is for every person in the motherland to seek some inspiration and direction from what is happening at the place. Let every unemployed person visit the place. The underemployed should too.

Street sellers, kayayee (female/ male), the graduate unemployed, all must visit CSIR CRI, Fumesua.

All entrepreneurship course (compulsory in university) students must mandatorily write their term papers on what they would do with what they see at the Crops Research Institute. Every SHS student (especially in the Agriculture and Home Economics programmes) compulsorily visit the place.

Kwame Nkrumah built the Atomic Energy facility as a self-contained city. Provide the scientists with all they would need; food, shelter and clothing, school for their children. Don’t make them need anything. And in their small comfort zone, they would use their brains to solve all our problems. That is what we should do with the CSIR Crops Research Institute and all the 12 other institutes I haven’t seen.

All MMDCES and heads of institutions which directly disburse motherland cash should be there to learn more about how we can develop value for money and investment with whatever little we have.

I hear the Finance Minister has been there. Let him be followed by the administrators of the common fund, MASLOC, LEAP and GETFUND. Those dealing with people such as the NYEP/GYEEDA/YEA and National Service scheme must also visit the place.

All MPs, MMDCEs, Sub-Metro directors should visit the place.

The President of the National House of Chiefs must visit with his team of Presidents of the Regional Houses of Chiefs.

The Chief Justice must visit, the Speaker of Parliament must visit, and the President of the Republic must visit and ensure each and every one of his Ministers visits.

I saw the deputy minister of Agriculture there. The Minister of Labour should be there. I saw the GAWU General Secretary; the TUC Secretary-General and all his General Secretaries should be there. Food vendors, the tourist authority and organisations must show up for some valuable insights.

CSIR CRI must be lucky to have Minister Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng. Not just can do but will do was written all over his face. Despite the burning sun, he seemed in a hurry to make research have an immediate impact.

He quizzed about why a 12-month research yield cannot be reduced to three or six months. And he kept insisting on why things ought to be done differently to speed up results. He lamented the woeful lack of financial support to research and reiterated the old man President’s radical promise of 1.0% of GDP to rise to 3.0% to be allocated to research.

My compatriots, please let’s sing: ‘Ade papa bia m’ahu was CSIR Crop Research Institute oye, oye… Oyeee, oyee, oye because it has practical answers to our unemployment problems.’

To visit, though, especially from officialdom dressed formally, CRI must have a plan. Those visitors must make some time to change apparel. Wearing designer heavy Obama resplendent chief attire with golden ahenemma to match, or suit and tie, is not the most suitable attire for a CRI field visit. Something like a smock, as the Deputy MOFA Minister wore with wellington boots, would be the ideal.