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The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Food Research Institute (CSIR-FRI), in collaboration with Sheffield University and Gold Coast Sustainability and Governance Institute (GCSGI) organized an event at the CSIR-FRI on Thursday, 29^th April 2021. The theme for the event was, “The Triple Bottom sustainability analysis on the circular economy of the Agricultural food value chain in Ghana”. The objective of the workshop was to launch the final report and policy brief of the project. There were 30 in-house participants and 17 online participants.  In attendance was the Director-General of the CSIR, Prof. Victor Agyeman, the Acting Director of CSIR-Food Research Institute Prof. Charles Tortoe, and the immediate past Director of CSIR-FRI Prof. (Mrs) Mary Obodai, who was the lead of the project at CSIR-Food Research Institute. The project aimed to research into existing circular economy models, ways of cutting down on waste generation in the system and how beneficial it is socially, environmentally and economically. It was an insightful event and participants found the deliberations very fruitful.

Please click on the links below to read more about the report and the policy brief.

Technical Report

Policy Brief

Policy Brief

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The CREAM consortium, implementing the ‘Building Climate Resilience into Basin Water Management (CREAM)’ project in the Pra and the Densu River Basins in Ghana, has held its 2^nd Annual Planning Meeting on 17^th and 18^th November 2020. The meetings were held online instead of the usual face-to-face meetings, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CREAM is a 5-year interdisciplinary project (2019-2024) funded by the Denmark ministry of foreign affairs via the Danida Fellowship Centre. It is being implemented by 9 partners, namely, CSIR-Water Research Institute (lead), CSIR-Food Research Institute, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Hydrological Services Department, Ghana Meteorological Agency, SIRCOOL Bottled Water Company Ltd, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland - Denmark, Aarhus University - Denmark, and Griffith University-Australia. The main objective of the CREAM project is to create a knowledge base and capacity for integrating climate change and other future development scenarios into river basin management to enhance climate resilience, livelihood, water-food-energy security, and environmental conservation. To achieve the objectives, the research is focused on: (i) improving the spatial resolution of historic and projected climate data used for climate change impact analysis; (ii) further developing and testing methodologies for integrating climate change scenarios, shared socio-economic pathways and land-use/-cover change in an ensemble of water resource modelling tools, to assess impacts on basin water resources; (iii) improving the evidence and tools for assessing, valuing and  integrating water-related ecosystem services directly into river basin management; (iv) developing an interdisciplinary framework for supporting stakeholder dialogue and negotiations in water resources management; (v) analyzing stakeholder constraints to effective water governance and developing strategies to introduce innovative, effective policies and measures to enhance resilience; and (vi) enhancing capacity of researchers, students and stakeholders on how to incorporate climate resilience into water management.

The 2020 annual planning meeting was aimed at bringing project partners together to interact, give updates and assess progress made so far. The meeting was attended by26 Researchers and 7 PhD students on the project. The PhD students made presentations on progress of their work and received feedback and guidance from the Researchers.  Also, lead researchers of the project work packages made gave presentations on their work progress for the previous year and planned activities for the year ahead. These were discussed and adjusted accordingly. Further, issues on stakeholder engagement, journal publications and budget were discussed. The project has made significant progress even though some activities including socio-political data collection have been slowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are hopeful that implementation in 2021 will be successful.

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The National Farmers Day which was instituted in 1985 by the Government of Ghana is celebrated on the first Friday of December each year to recognize the contributions of farmers and fishers in the country. On National Farmers' Day, the Government of Ghana gives special awards to deserving farmers and fishermen based on their practices and output. The theme for the year 2020 farmers’ day was ‘’Ensuring Agribusiness Development under COVID-19: Opportunities and Challenges’’.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Food Research Institute - (CSIR-FRI) participated to make farmers and the public have a better understanding of the value chain of food products and their role in National Development. It also aimed at assisting the youth to develop the concept of entrepreneurship among them. These are aimed at solving problems related to food processing and preservation, food safety, storage, marketing, distribution and utilization, and food and nutritional security in support of the food industry.

Thus, CSIR-FRI exhibited products such as Plantain fufu (made from plantain and cassava), Kokonte (made from raw cassava), maize cereal mix (made from maize, soybeans, and groundnut), rice cereal mix (made from rice, soybeans, and groundnut), maize grits (made from raw maize/corn) groundnut paste, made from roasted groundnut.

One innovation that stood out during the exhibition was the mushroom cultivation technology. The mushroom value chain was introduced; thus, kebab, syrup, pie, dried, and canned. Students were taken through various training modules such as fruit juice/jams training, mushroom cultivation technology, food processing, HQCF training, and chocolate making.

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A meeting was held at CSIR-Food Research Institute (CSIR-FRI) with a Team of Investors from Lutech Engineering, Ghana, who wanted to discuss issues bordering on value addition and how CSIR-FRI operates, and how collaboration could be achieved between the team and CSIR-FRI.

Prof. Mrs. Mary Obodia, The Director of CSIR-FRI made a presentation on activities of CSIR-FRI and how it goes about adding value to agricultural products and equipment. The Director's presentation dwelled on the history, mission, vision, mandate, organizational structure, research areas, services, technology transfer, laboratory accreditations, achievements, and client base of the Institute.

The team was interested in CSIR-FRI’s Ethanol plant at Pokuase that had been sitting ideal for a while now and if there was a possibility of collaborating to make the plant operational. It was reiterated that the institute had a business plan for the Pokuase plant and that work on the plant was 95% complete however, a total of US$ 675,000 was needed to complete work on the plant for production to start.

The investors wanted to know more about the possibility of jam, honey, rice cake, and cereal production, of which they were made aware that the Institute was in a better position to assist in the development and subsequent production of such products. However, when it comes to honey production, one of the 13 Institutes of CSIR Ghana is responsible for research into honey production and for that matter honey production.

The Team later visited some of the facilities at the Institute to have a practical feel of the activities of the Institutes.