Participants discuss improvement of cassava production in West Africa

The Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is spearheading a programme to maximise cassava production through the use of disease-resistant planting materials in the country.

Currently, research indicates that the sub-region, which produces about 31 per cent of the world’s cassava, is being threatened by viral diseases, including the African Cassava Mosaic Virus.

This came to light at a two-day Ashanti Regional workshop to review the first phase of the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme’s (WAAPP’s) Diffusion of Approaches for the Control of Cassava Diseases (DALIMA) Project in Kumasi.

Participants

Participants were drawn from Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Sierra Leone, Benin, Liberia and Nigeria.

Among issues discussed were how to strategise to develop a new roadmap to sustain the project for the next phase.It is being jointly funded by the United States Agency