By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Fumesua (Ash), Nov. 19, GNA – Some selected plant breeders and seed scientists are undergoing training to effectively conduct tests on the distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) of new plant varieties for Ghana and applications from other countries.
This training has become necessary following the implementation of the Plant Variety Protection Act 2020, (Act 1050) by the Ghana Industrial Property Office (GHIPO) of the Registrar General’s Department.
The five-day training has been put together by the GHIPO in collaboration with the Netherlands Embassy and Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Breeders and seed scientists for the training were selected from CSIR-CRI, CSIR- Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, (CSIR- SARI), CSIR- Oil Palm Research Institute, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana.
Dr. Ernest Baafi, Acting Director, CSIR-CRI, opening the training at Fumesua, near Ejisu, said one of the essential processes in granting Plant Breeder’s right was for a new variety to pass the DUS test.
DUS testing is a way of determining whether a newly bred variety differs from existing varieties within the same species (the Distinctness part), whether the characteristics used to establish Distinctness are expressed uniformly (the Uniformity part) and that these characteristics do not change over subsequent generations (the Stability part).
DUS tests exist so that new varieties can legally gain access to their market via the UK National List and/or for the granting of Plant Breeders Rights, a form of intellectual property rights designed to safeguard the substantial economic investment involved in modern plant breeding.
A DUS test is usually conducted in the field or glasshouse over two successive growing seasons. During this period a number of mainly morphological characteristics are recorded both on the new (or candidate) variety and on similar varieties in what is known as “Common Knowledge”.
Differences, if they exist, are established by observation and measurement using internationally agreed protocols.
Explaining further, Dr Baafi indicated that, there was now a harmonisation whereby when a crop variety was released in Ghana, “we need not to release the same variety in Nigeria or Burkina Faso.
“We have to just get the registration there right away, when hitherto, once it is released in Ghana, when it gets to another country it has to go through the same process again.”
Dr. Baafi said streamlining this new system would further enhance the food security system, explaining that, as breeders grasped the crop developmental system “one would not have to get there and then realize that he or she needed to have done this and therefore would have to start all over again”.
Once breeders begin developing their crop varieties, they know exactly what they are supposed to do each step of the way and the crop varieties’ turnovers would be high, he added.
Dr Hillary Mireku Botey, a Seed Scientist at the CSIR-CRI, said with this new international system, Ghana was adapting to have the goal of making available varieties that could combat climate change challenges for farmers.
“We want new varieties that can withstand pests and diseases, grow faster and use little or less water because now we are experiencing drought,” he observed.
Dr. Botey assured farmers and breeders of a Plant Variety Protection Act that would make available adaptable crop varieties from other countries and the other way round.
GNA