Date

November 22-24, 2011

Venue

Golden Tulip Hotel, Kumasi, Ghana

Organizers

Kinki University, JIRCAS, AfricaRice, CRI Ghana and SRI Ghana

The Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) has been conducting a research study since 2008 on, “Development of Improved Infrastructure and Technologies for Rice Production in Africa (DIITRPA)”, a project financially supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan.
In order to contribute to the goal of the Coalition of African Rice Development (CARD) to double rice production in Africa within ten years, JIRCAS has analyzed irrigation facilities and the status of the rice production infrastructure of farmlands, and is now performing validation studies in both Ghana and Ethiopia. In Ghana, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) as well as the Soil Research Institute (SRI) and the Crops Research Institute (CRI), which are both under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), are working together as counterpart organizations of DIITRPA. We have achieved the putting together of methods of preparation of the rice production infrastructure up to this final year of the 4-year research period, and have been drafting a simple booklet “Manual for Improving Rice Production”, which should be useful not only in Ghana, but in other African nations as well.
In this workshop, about 70 participants gathered from Benin, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria and Togo which included extension officers, researchers, rice farmers and the MOFA staff in Ghana. Presentations and a field tour were carried out in order to present an overview of the research activities by researchers and the field application by farmers who are carrying out paddy rice cultivation (using the Sawah System) in each country.
On the first day on the 22nd of November, the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology and the Director General of CSIR made speeches respectively to congratulate the project and the workshop. A lot of discussion and suggestions were raised during the 19 presentations which showed the results of the Sawah System in each country. The field tour was carried out on the 23rd of November, which included ocular visits to the JIRCAS study sites as well as four other project sites. In the overall discussion session on the final day, the 24th of November, the farmers who participated in the workshop shared comments on the related projects of each country in their local language, and then the importance of technology transfer was discussed for the development of the paddy fields towards improved rice cultivation in the future. On wrapping up, all the participants chanted, “Say Sawah,” as slogan for collaboration.