New Sweet Potato To Be Named After Kofi Annan

The Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has hinted honouring the memory of Mr Kofi Annan, by naming one of its ten newly-researched potato varieties after him.

Dr. Ernest Baafi, a researcher at CRI and leader for the breeding team said the decision was to immortalise the great leader for the advocacy role he played to champion the wide and high consumption of the nutrient-dense root and tuber crop to help boost the nutritional needs of the Ghanaian populace.

He told the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a field inspection tour to brief the media on the new ten varieties proposed for release, at Fumesua in the Ejisu Municipality.

Dr Baafi said Mr Annan’s pivotal role also as the founding Chair of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the funding Agency for the research, needed to be lauded to the skies to honour him, though posthumously, as his mortal remains in state.

He said all ten varieties in a unique nomenclature would be prefaced with CRI, to denote the name of the research institution and then the other names would follow.

Six of them, he said would take the name of AGRA, while the remaining three would also be named after both local and foreign lead researchers including a white lady.