A three-week (June 28 - July 16) Biotechnology School on “genotyping and phenotyping plant genetic resources” has opened at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, University of Ghana. The three-week workshop funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany is a collaboration between WACCI and the Institute of Plant Breeding, Seed Science and Population Genetics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.

Professor Ben Ahunu, Provost of the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences welcomed the 24 participants from 7 countries (Burkina Faso, Germany, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and South Africa) on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor C.N.B. Tagoe. In a brief speech on developments in the College, he said that the recent establishment of a School of Veterinary Medicine and restructuring of programmes have broadened the scope of courses offered. He commended WACCI for putting together a comprehensive Biotech School which he hoped would equip participants with new knowledge and skills in genotyping and phenotyping of plant genetic resources.

Professor Eric Danquah, Director of WACCI in his opening address lamented the deteriorating quality of post graduate education in the sciences in most of sub-Saharan Africa due to inadequate funding. He intimated that the state of food insecurity in the sub-region was due in part, to weak infrastructure and low prioritization of research and development. He said WACCI currently has enrolled 28 PhD students and developed a range of programmes in plant breeding and biotechnology to equip scientists with knowledge and skills for the development of improved crop varieties. The Biotech School, he stressed, had been designed to correlate laboratory results in biotechnology with results from field work to ensure that research results do not remain in the laboratory as in the past, but are taken to the door step of the farmer, following validation on research plots.  Professor Danquah thanked the collaborators from the University of Hohenheim for partnering with WACCI to launch a comprehensive Biotech School. He acknowledged with thanks, the funding from the Volkswagen Foundation and expressed the hope that more collaborative ventures will be undertaken in the future. He wished participants well in the workshop and various fields of endeavour.

Also present at the opening ceremony were Professor Kwame Offei, Dean, School of Agriculture and Associate Director of WACCI and Dr. Bettina I.G. Haussmann, Principal Scientist, International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Niamey, Niger.

Other instructors for the three-week workshop include:

• Professor Philip White, Head, Environmental Plant Interactions Programme, Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), Dundee, Scotland
• Professor Khaled Masmoudi, Head, Plant Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Centre of Biotechnology, Sfax, Tunisia
• Dr. Heiko Kurt Parzies, Senior Scientist, Institute of Plant Breeding, Seed Science and Population Genetics, University of Hohenheim, Germany
• Dr. Jacquelyn Renae Jackson, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Sciences , Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL, USA