CSIR-CROPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE INAUGURATES NEW DIRECTOR INTO OFFICE
The CSIR-Crops Research Institute has inducted Dr. Moses Brandford Mochiah, an entomologist and a Principal Research Scientist of the Institute into office as its new Director. The position of Director of the Institute became vacant after the immediate past Director, Dr. Stella Ama Ennin, the first female occupant of the office, successfully ended her tenure in March 2019. Prior to his appointment as the substantive Director, Dr. Mochiah was the Deputy Director of the Institute and also served as acting Director for a few months.
At his induction ceremony which was graced by the Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), former Directors of the Institute and Directors of other Institutes under the CSIR, the new Director pledged to provide effective leadership and work hard towards attaining the Institute’s objectives and targets.
“We will ensure that the Institute maintains its enviable position as the foremost agricultural Institute under corporate CSIR, by working harder to improve on our research outputs, facilities and incomes. We will strive to achieve the objectives and outputs set under the five (5) strategic thrusts of the Institute”
The quest to reduce Ghana’s rice import bill has informed rice breeding activities of the CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) within the last decade. The Institute continues to breed for improved rice varieties in order to increase productivity on smallholder farmers’ fields. Smallholder farmers have benefitted from the institute’s breeding activities and over the years and on Friday, 13th September, a team from the rice section of the cereals division of the Institute, engaged farmers
rs along the rice value chain in Ghana have called for an increase in the import levy placed on rice importation in the country. Currently, importers of rice pay a 20 percent (20%) levy on the value of their imports. The Government of Ghana has been advised to increase this to 25 percent (25%)
The first cohort of the M. Phil (Plant Breeding and Biotechnology) students of the CSIR College of Science and Technology have successfully defended their theses. The five students, Mr. Maxwell Lamptey, Mr. Joseph Gyau, Nana Kwame Sakyi, Miss Agnes Achiaa Aboagye and Mr. Isaac Tawiah have been taken through the various breeding programmes at the CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Kumasi and were well supervised by senior members of the Institute.
