Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR – SARI) has held its annual in-house review meeting to showcase its achievements in various fields of research.
The three-day meeting, which ended at Nyankpala in the Tolon District of the Northern Region, was also to present the CSIR – SARI’s plan of activities for the year and discuss research activities and results.
It afforded young researchers at the Institute an opportunity to learn from experienced researchers in areas such as agronomy, entomology and soil fertility.
Dr Francis Kusi, Acting Director of CSIR – SARI, gave an overview of the Institute during the meeting emphasising the five thrusts as part of the Institute’s strategic plan, which included innovation systems research (Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D), communication, commercialisation, capacity building and systems and procedures.
Dr Kusi called for dedication and hard work amongst the staff to enable them to achieve the Institute’s strategic plan, emphasising the need for all researchers of the Institute not to take communication of their activities lightly and actively involve the media.
Presentations in various fields of agriculture including breeding, agronomy, agrometeorology, soil fertility, soil and water conservation, seed science, entomology, post-harvest, weed science, and socio-economics were made during the meeting.
Dr Matthias Fosu, a Soil Fertility Specialist, who spoke on behalf of resource persons during the meeting, thanked the Institute for the opportunity to share their expertise with young scientists at the Institute, expressing hope that it would help to improve their work.
Dr Fosu was pleased with the research quality at the Institute, especially the use of modern breeding tools like marker assisted breeding and expressed the need for soil scientists at the Institute to adopt more modern tools to get fast-tracked results in their analysis.
He said: “Overall, we are really pleased with the turn-out and research quality. We advise more research be dedicated towards the industry since that is where Internally Generated Funds are received.”
Mr Elias Krofa, a Technician at CSIR – SARI described the meeting as “A good avenue to learn and also lead us to get new research ideas to work on.”
