Government is putting in place measures to improve the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.

According to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, plant variety has contributed largely to the success of the flagship program.

However, the country lacks a system within which the recently passed Plant Variety Protection Act, 2020 could be effectively implemented.

Government together with key stakeholders in the agriculture sector have organized a two-day workshop to promote Plant Variety Protection.

Speaking at the workshop on Monday, Acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Patrick Ankobiah, said stakeholders will develop an effective system for the protection of plant variety and the rights of plant breeders.

“It is expected that at the end of this workshop, a knowledge base on plant variety protection would be created and the practical implementation of Plant Variety Protection (PVP) and plant breeder right would be effective.”

“A country road map would be developed for PVP system enforcement for license agreement framework implementation, as well as establish public-private sector relationships between breeders and local seed companies for local distribution of protected varieties. It is expected that an effective system for plant variety protection, the rights of farmers and plant breeders would be established in Ghana,” he stated.

The Chief Director of the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Cynthia Asare-Bediako, pledged the ministry’s commitment to ensuring the realization of the PVP system while highlighting the importance of establishing such a system.

“The intellectual property rights on a variety gives a breeder the exclusive rights to decide how to exploit and release the innovation in the most appropriate way for our collective interest. This singular gesture underpins the fact that many African countries have started considering the introduction of this system for the protection of newly developed varieties of plants.”

She said they have chosen to base their Plant Variety Protection system on the International Convention in order to provide an effective and internationally recognized system.

“My ministry is overly excited about this system for the protection of newly developed varieties of plants in Africa as a whole and Ghana in particular, and (we will) continue to support such laudable innovative programmes”, she explained.