network of research and training centres and programmes
Issue 24: March-April 2003
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UNU Update | |
| The newsletter of United Nations
University and its network of research and training centres and programmes |
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Issue 24: March-April 2003 |
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Ghana tissue lab UNU Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) and the University of Ghana will expand their joint tissue culture programme following announcement of a major cash grant from a local pineapple company.
Programme coordinator Dr. Elizabeth Acheampong said that under an agreement with Bomart Farm Ltd, more than $68,000 has been to the programme to buy additional equipment such as lamina flow cabinets, chemicals and other laboratory essentials. The enhanced facilities will be used to train 18 technicians and produce a million disease-free pineapple plantlets for cultivation on the company's farms. Ghana's agricultural sector employs about 60 percent of the labor force and accounts for 37 percent of GDP. In a recent diversification campaign, the export of pineapples to European markets has grown from less than 7 percent of total agricultural earnings in the early 1990s to almost 20 percent today. “This significant achievement has not been without problems,” says a senior official of the Ghana Export Promotion Council. “Aside from the relatively high cost of credit, growers and exporters of pineapples have to overcome the problem of scarcity of good planting materials to ensure that the produce not only meets quality standards of importers but can also be delivered on time in the right quantities.” INRA's Dr. Acheampong says she and her fellow scientists have tackled the problem of scarce healthy planting materials through the application of plant tissue culture technology with the support of Bomarts. The latest grant will allow the laboratory to take on additional graduate students for research and training. "It is also the first time the programme has been able to commercialize some aspects of our work to raise funds to support the laboratory,” she said. A Bomarts scientist currently attached to the laboratory said the deal was a win-win situation. "With the massive investment, we will remain the preferred supplier of our foreign business partners. Our products will continue to be the toast of retailers because we can meet our orders by producing quality products in the right quantities at the right time, while lending support to teaching and research at the university.”
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