The Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana has organised an open day to expose research and other activities undertaken by the substation in Bole, to the general public, as part of activities marking its 70th anniversary celebrations.
In an address at the opening, the Director of the substation, Dr Emmanuel Kofi Odoi, remarked that, the Institute was established mainly to undertake research into and provide information and advice on all maters relating to cocoa, cashew, cola and later sheanuts in 1938.
He remarked that a substation of the Institute was established in 1971 at Bole in the Northern Region where Sheanuts are predominant, to develop appropriate technology that offers solution to farmers problems in sheanut and Cashew cultivation and to further offer technology and scientific advice to farmers.
Dr Odoi said the Institute would soon introduce modern farming technologies of the shea tree to farmers to reduce their gestation period from 20 to seven years. He said farmers were being encouraged to protect the wild growing shea nut trees from bushfires as means of conserving their species from destruction and to improve on them for high productivity.
The Institute added cashew to its mandated crops production in collaboration with the Cashew nut Development Project of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in developing various technologies, some of which have already been introduced to cashew farmers in the district.
Dr Odoi disclosed that to meet its plan of improving on the lifestyles of the rural people, the Institute was embarking on a non-direct sheanut and cashew research, through picking and processing of sheanut, and cashew, and that the Institute seasonally employs 100 to 150 women, and 40 others for the operation of the cashew processing project.
Seventy other young men were also employed monthly to maintain the fields, carry out maintenance of building, and assist with experimental work, and expressed the hope that they would soon be employed on permanent basis.
The District Chief Executive, Mr Jerry Yakubu Yahaya, commended the Institute for solving part of the unemployment problem facing the youth and women in the district. He also appealed for the expansion of the Cocoa Board Scholarship Scheme for children of cocoa farmers to cover those of sheanut, and cashew farmers in the Northern Region.