Ghana to host world groundnut researchers in Tamale

Scientists from Africa, the United States and Haiti will gather in Tamale on Wednesday August 18 to share information about the latest developments in groundnut research.

The gathering is the annual meeting for the Peanut & Mycotoxin Innovation Lab, which is made up of scientists and student researchers working through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Feed the Future program to improve food security and profits for producers, processors and marketers of groundnut.

The scientists, numbering about 60 in all would visit research plots and farms as they make stops in Tamale, Accra and Kumasi.

In a statement issued in Tamale and copied to the GNA by the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) said the project in Ghana conducts research on groundnuts from the farm to the market to consumers’ tables saying “research starts even before the seeds are planted in the ground, testing which types of seeds will produce the safest and greatest yields in Ghanaian fields”.

The statement signed by Dr Mumuni Abudulai, head of Plant Prost Harvest and Protection of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), said practical field research is done in cooperation with local farmers in villages such as Zankali in the Karaga District where growers test out seed varieties for yield and tolerance to disease and drought.

It said similar projects with groundnuts are underway in Southern Africa (Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique) and in Haiti.

It said the groundnut experts would also visit SARI in Nyankpala and the Crops Research Institute in Kumasi, both of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi and the University of Ghana in Accra.

The statement said Ghanaian farmers produce 409,000 metric tonnes of groundnuts every year, which serve as an important source of protein for children and adults.