The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana is to partner with the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Challenge Programme (CCAFS) of the Consultative Group on

Dr. Andrew Jarvis

International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to work toward developing Climate-smart crops to improve food security in Africa.  This development follows discussions between the Director of WACCI, Prof. Eric Danquah and the theme leader of the CGIAR-CCAFS programme for Adaptation to Progressive Climate Change (APCC), Dr. Andrew Jarvis, CIAT, Columbia.

To kick-start the partnership, a workshop has been scheduled for Addis Ababa from December 6-8, 2011 to identify potential improvement scenarios, and begin to incorporate them into crop models; and also to build a community that will support CCAFS through the adoption of the developed strategies.

The CCAFS addresses the most pressing and complex challenges to food security in the 21st century and brings together the world’s best researchers in Agricultural Science and Earth System Science through the union of the complementary strengths of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system and the Earth System Science Partnership. CCAFS aims at generating comprehensive strategies for crop improvement through a combination of modelling, expert consultation and stakeholder dialogue; and translating these insights into coordinated global, regional and national research and technology investment policies.

WACCI, a partnership between the University of Ghana and Cornell University, is a Regional Centre of Excellence established in 2007 with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to train plant breeders for West and Central Africa. Currently, 36 PhD students, funded by AGRA and the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), are enrolled at WACCI. The fifth cohort of 8 students will enroll in January 2012. WACCI’s training of PhD students includes plant breeding using both field and molecular methodologies to solve smallholder farmer problems by developing improved varieties that are preferred by the farmers. The students address aspects of abiotic stresses such as drought, heat and biotic stresses such as disease and insect tolerance.