Journalists urged to promote World Bank’s agric programme

The Director of the Crop Research Institute (CRI), has urged Journalists to disseminate information about the World Bank West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP), aimed at generating enhanced agricultural technologies to increase farmers crop yield.

Reverend Dr Hans Adu-Dapaah said WAAPP is an important project in the West African sub-region to reduce poverty among peasant farmers and it cannot fulfill its mandate without intensive awareness creation by the media.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the WAAPP communication strategy workshop for Journalists from Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions, as well as Scientists from CRI, at Fumesua on Thursday.

The workshop was to strengthen the partnership between the media and research officers, and also create a platform for the Journalists and the researchers to share ideas on dissemination on agricultural technologies, developed under WAAP for the benefit of farmers and industrialists.

The Director hoped that after the workshop the practitioners would do follow-ups with publications regularly on latest developments of the project so that its impact could be ascertained.

He said scientists do not have anything to hide from Journalists except that they wanted to be sure about their facts before going public, “this is why most of the time scientists are silent on their work”.

“When we are satisfied with our results, we talk about them at conferences and publish them in journals, books and other materials.

The Rev Dr Adu-Dapaah said they are sometimes accused of using technical language or jargons people do not understand and expected that the workshop would find solutions to this issue so that research results could reach the target audience.

He said when this happens agricultural productivity would be increased and there would be more food and raw materials to support the development of the country.

Source: GNA