Kumasi, June 22, GNA - The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has pledged its resolve to embark on more aggressive technology development and transfer to boost agricultural productivity. Dr Alhassan Baba Salifu, the Director-General, said they would do everything to introduce high-yielding crop varieties and promote value-addition, to sustain farmers' incomes.

He noted for example that, through training workshops, farmer field schools, on-farm research, demonstration and participatory technology development, the CSIR, over the years had succeeded to disseminate relevant knowledge to farmers and processors to sustain their businesses. This was contained in a speech read for him at a two-day training workshop on the 93Dissemination of New Agricultural Technologies in Africa (DONATA) Project" in Kumasi.

The project is being managed by the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) and aims at providing a platform for stakeholders in the cassava industry, to explore various approaches through exchange of ideas and experiences for the adoption of cassava production technologies.

The Crop Research Institute (CRI) of the CSIR is the implementing agency. Dr Salifu said it was high time Ghana learned from the experiences of countries such as China and South Africa, who through imported technologies and proper application of these within their local context, had achieved economic growth. He said he was confident that cassava farmers in particular could benefit from increased crop yield and stronger linkages to domestic and regional markets if they diligently worked along the value chain concept in the process of technology transfer and dissemination. Dr Stella Ama Ennin, Deputy-Director of the CRI, urged all relevant stakeholders in the DONATA Project to work harder in their assigned roles t= o ensure its success.