22/11/2025
On Thursday, 15th October, 2025.
Scaling Climate-Smart and Nutrient-Dense Maize Hybrids: TAAT II Maize Compact Empowers Farmers in Chereponi
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), organized a field day at Kpamamba and Japka communities in the Chereponi District. The activity formed part of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT II) Maize Compact, which seeks to accelerate farmer access to proven, climate-smart and nutrient-dense maize technologies across sub-Saharan Africa.
The events showcased four improved maize hybrids developed under CSIR-SARI’s Maize Improvement Programme and promoted through the TAAT–AATF partnership. These hybrids demonstrate tolerance to drought, adaptability to the Guinea Savanna ecology, with enhanced nutritional traits, thereby aligning with TAAT’s continental goal of boosting productivity, strengthening resilience, and reducing food and nutrition insecurity.
Participants including farmers, input dealers, extension agents, and other maize value chain actors were taken through sessions on good agronomic practices (GAPs), post-harvest handling, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
Speaking at the gathering, Dr. Isaac Kodzo Amegbor, Maize Breeder at CSIR-SARI and Lead for the TAAT II Maize activities in northern Ghana, expressed gratitude to the communities for their participation throughout the production cycle. He highlighted the mission of AATF and the TAAT II Maize Compact to fast-track the delivery and scaling of proven agricultural technologies that increase yields, improve nutrition, and support livelihoods.
Dr. Amegbor emphasized CSIR-SARI’s mandate to provide farmers with technologies that enhance food and fibre crop production through sustainable, climate-smart systems that protect soil fertility and address constraints such as drought, pests, and declining soil nutrients.
Delivering technical training, he reiterated that GAPs are essential for achieving optimum yields, stressing: Use of quality certified seeds, proper land preparation, achieving optimal plant population, timely fertilizer application, effective w**d, pest, and disease management, adoption of improved planting techniques such as one seed per hole, line planting, and 20–25 cm intra-row spacing depending on maturity group
He encouraged farmers to serve as ambassadors of these technologies, ensuring widespread adoption within their communities. “The ultimate goal of every farmer is to achieve high and stable yields at harvest. Realizing this goal requires a sequence of well-timed and coordinated agronomic activities. This is the reason we engaged you from the very first day of field establishment to ensure that each critical step becomes integrated into your routine production practices” he noted.
Ms. Flavian Anyango and Mr. Gilbert Otieno representing TAAT’s Seed Systems Unit, educated farmers on post-harvest management practices critical for maintaining grain quality and reducing losses.
After engaging farmers on their experiences, she emphasized that storing maize with high moisture content exposes farmers to aflatoxin contamination, which compromises yield after harvest, health and market value. She demonstrated traditional methods for assessing grain dryness, including biting the seed hardness indicates dryness and bottle-and-salt test moisture condensation inside the bottle signals that seeds are not fully dried in addition to the use of grain moisture metre.
Ms. Anyango further advised farmers to avoid storing grains directly on bare floors. Instead, grains should be placed on pallets, well-aerated platforms, or stored in hermetic bags and airtight containers to maintain quality for longer periods. The hermetic bags and airtight containers also help protect the grains from storage pests such as weevils.
Ms. Salome Michieka, Nutrition Specialist from AATF, addressed the importance of integrating nutrition into farming activities. She encouraged households to establish kitchen gardens and prioritize consumption of nutrient-dense maize hybrids especially CSIR-Demaali-Engee and CRI-Abebe, which are rich in Provitamin A and CSIR-Adubi-Boyo which is rich in lysine and tryptophan. She encouraged the farmers to utilise the income generated from the sales of their produce to access other nutritious food items to incorporate diversity for household nutrition security. These micronutrients are critical for improving family health, she added.
She educated participants on the importance of consuming balanced diets consisting of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals explaining that deficiencies in any food group may contribute to non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and kidney disorders.
Farmers expressed deep appreciation to CSIR-SARI, AATF, and TAAT for exposing them to new, impactful technologies. They noted that the demonstrated hybrids matured earlier and showed remarkable drought tolerance, especially in a year where prolonged dry spells severely affected their own fields. “Even though harvest is yet to be done, the yields from the demonstration plots are highly impressive than ours”, the farmers said. They appealed for continued collaboration and wider access to the new varieties.
Speaking on behalf of MoFA in Chereponi, Mr. Nelson Kwabena encouraged farmers to adopt the introduced hybrids and commended the TAAT II team for bringing science closer to farmers.
The Assembly Member for Nansoni Electoral Area, Mr. Iddrisu Imurana, endorsed the new varieties after observing their superior performance, adding, “Let us produce what we eat and eat what we produce.”
Report Prepared By:
Muhsinatu Yakah Baba Kolo
Lamaraya 89.1 FM
