Professor Daniel Aniagyei Ofori, the Director, indicated that it had a wealth of expertise on plantation development and resources to assist the successful implementation of the strategy.

He said this when he spoke to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a training workshop on insect and pest diseases on forest plantations held at Fumesua in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality.

He underlined the determination of the Institute to provide leadership in research and technology transfer in the forest sector initiative.  The 25-year National Plantation Strategy, which was launched in 2016, seeks to establish 625,000 hectares of forest plantations. Added to this would be enrichment planting of 100,000 hectares and 3.75 million hectares of trees on farms.     

Prof Ofori said FORIG had established a national tree seed centre to manage breeding seed orchards and seed stands of both indigenous and exotic tree species including ‘Wawa’, ‘Kuisa’, Mahogany, ‘Ofram’, Teak, Cedrela and other, to aid forest plantation and development.

The Institute has been mandated to undertake forest, forest products and related research, disseminate and commercialize its research outputs and services. He stated that it had the vision of becoming a centre of excellence in forestry research in the humid tropics. Prof Ofori said this required disseminating information, technology transfer and building capacities of all relevant stakeholders to achieve the national forest sector development targets.

       He gave the assurance that it would continue to offer the needed support to private, commercial and other interested plantation developers and tree growers to adopt best practices and technologies to promote sustainable forest management and utilization.

Prof Ofori applauded the Private Afforestation Developers Organization (PADO) a group of indigenous local plantation developers, for their initiative to seek scientific understanding of insect and pest infestations in their plantations and ways to control them.

He called on forest plantation developers to always consult the Institute for expert advice to protect their investment.