A study of the biology of the commonly cultured finfish and shellfish species in tropical Africa is provided. The course begins with an introductory discussion of the attributes of cultivable species, followed by in-depth study of the morphology, anatomy, respiration, food and feeding habits, growth characteristics, and reproductive habits of selected species. Local examples of species with potential for culturing will also be considered. Emphasis will be placed on the relationship between the biological attributes and culture methods.
The course offers in-depth study of the neoconservative and conservative aspects of water in enclosures and other facilities for aquaculture. Students will also study the chemical, biological, and mechanical methods of maintaining and improving water quality in aquaculture. The possible causes and prevention of pollution of aquaculture systems as well as by the systems will be discussed.
This course examines the principles and practices in the selection of sites for aquaculture, surveying and mapping of pond sites, and techniques of pond construction. The use of ponds, cages, pens, tanks, raceways and other facilities for fish production as well as aquarium fisheries are discussed. Students will have a practical experience of constructing and mounting holding facilities for both finfish and shellfish. The process of land acquisition in Ghana, and tenure are also discussed.
| Date | Sessions | Programme | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9th September, 2019 | 1st Session | College of Health and Allied Sciences | 10:00am |
| 26th September, 2019 | 2nd Session | College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences | 9am - 11am |
| 26th September, 2019 | 3rd Session | College of Humanities and Legal Studies | 1pm - 3pm |
| 27th September, 2019 | 4th Session | College of Education Studies | 9am - 11am |
| 27th September, 2019 | 5th Session | School of Graduate Studies | 1pm - 3pm |
Venue: New Examination Centre (N.E.C) New Site
Mary Mcbride, Director, Applied Segment Markets, Sponsored A Request For The Agilent Foundation To Fund This Initiative. A Grant Was Awarded.
Half of the world’s population depends upon rice as their premium staple food. In recent history, rice consumption has travelled far beyond Asian countries to become the fastestgrowing food staple in Africa – and unscrupulous people are taking advantage of this massive business opportunity.
The most common kind of “rice fraud” is substituting low quality rice for premium rice. But more recently, dangerous types of fraud have been detected. For example, old, moldy rice can be bleached and sprayed with chemicals so that it looks and smells like premium rice. Another more sinister fraud is mixing premium rice with plastic that has been milled to look like rice.
These rice problems first surfaced in China. But around 2015, the offenders shifted their attention to Africa, where rice is the most popular and also the fastest growing food staple.
West African ports serve as the major gateway for food coming into the rest of Africa, so an enormous amount of imported rice passes through their markets. Suddenly, families and entire communities in West Africa were becoming dangerously sick after eating rice.
Under the leadership of international food fraud expert Professor Chris Elliott, Director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queens University, Belfast, the global Fingerprinting Rice team was established to tackle some of these issues.
Their first goal was to create a system to monitor and manage fraudulent rice. They hoped to find a way to “fingerprint” premium quality rice so it could be easily identified in the marketplace as safe. Ideally, consumers could watch the rice being tested and know they were buying clean food.
“But back in 2015 and 2017, It took a long time to determine the difference between an authentic rice and an adulterated rice,” said Dr. Ernest Teye, professor in the Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. “We needed to find a way to quickly identify good rice.”
The Agilent Foundation provided a grant to support this critical research.
“We needed to find a way to quickly identify good rice.”
The team agreed that a rapid screening approach that would work in the field was critical, and that hand-held molecular spectroscopy was a good option. At the same time, they worked on developing an extensive library of molecular fingerprints using thousands of rice samples from China, India, Ghana and Vietnam. The rice fingerprints could be stored in the digital cloud, ready to access during rice testing.
It was a practical plan.
In moments, samples could be matched if the rice was good.
With technology identified and a testing system in place, the team has been sharing their learnings. The two-year initiative is nearing completion, and team members from China, Vietnam and Ghana have been scheduling and conducting international and in-country workshops for stakeholders, and staff and students at their Universities.
The team has also identified biomarkers of authentic rice and intends to drive the biomarkers into the development of new standard test methods at the ISO standards level.
And of course, they are all working to support continued rice testing in their marketplaces. “We are bringing food analysis into the kitchen, to inform people about the quality of rice,” said Teye. “We are now overcoming the problems of toxic rice. We have a simple, rapid robotic detection method and the necessary identifying biomarkers for good rice. Together, this will save a lot of lives. That’s a good solution for all.”
“We are now overcoming the problems of toxic rice. We have a simple, rapid robotic detection method and the necessary identifying biomarkers for good rice. Together, this will save a lot of lives. That’s a good solution for all.”
Rice is consumed by more than 3.5 billion people (almost half of the world’s population) and African countries imported more than 7.6 million tonnes of rice amounting to about $ 4 billion. In 2016, there was a wide spread rumour of fake plastic rice in the world and Ghana was not left out. This rumour was ranked 9th of 13 emerging food risks in the world. To make matters worse, the well-known detection techniques were inappropriate for on-site application and needed skilled individuals, it is difficult to use, high cost, and was much labor intensive. It is also often limited to a few sample selection with its own challenges such as high cost, difficult to use, and long duration among others. This notwithstanding, the use of rapid detection techniques for the authentication of the many rice brands in the market is also not available. This means rice will be consumed before the test results are released, furthermore the market surveillance of suspicious rice is normally destructive and limited to only a few samples.
The Department of Agricultural Engineering, School of Agriculture, University of Cape Coast in collaboration with the Institute for Global Food Security, Queens University Belfast through the support from Agilent foundation and MARS technologies conducted a global research on fingerprinting rice: implementing a system to monitor and manage food fraud (a two tier approach). This led to the development of rapid handheld spectroscopic technique coupled with mobile phone for quick on-site non-destructive detection of rice authenticity and quality. The workshop (the first of its kind) was therefore organized to provide participants in the rice value chain with comprehensive training in the use of this aforementioned technology (handheld spectroscopic methods) for rapid detection of authentic/ fraud/contamination rice.
The workshop is therefore timely as the technique provided regulators as well as other players a novel, rapid and inexpensive detection technique for rice authenticity on-site (i.e taking the lab to the sample). This is particularly vital in the face of global rice fraud with its huge socio-economic and health consequences.
The participants of this workshop numbering over 170 included:
the whole actors in the rice value chain: Processors, Breeders, Wholesaler, Retailers, Market women, Farmers, Police officers, Scientist, Media, Investors, Students, Lecturer, researchers, Medical officers, Agric Officers, Bankers, Opinion leaders, Food safety/quality regulators (FDA, Ghana standard board) and Consumers
The Dignitaries who attended the workshop includes:
The Dean of School of Agriculture; Prof Elvis Asare-Bediako (Chairman of the workshop)
College Registrar: Mrs Mildred Asmah
Director (Institute for Global Food Security), Former Pro- Vice of Queens University Belfast and PI: Prof Chris Elliott.
Deputy UK Government Chemist: Mrs Selvarani Elahi
LOC chair and Co-PI: Dr. Ernest Teye
The others are
Breeder: Dr. Maxwell Darko Asante (Crop Research Institute)
Prof Sarah Darkwah (Votech)
Prof J. P. Tetteh (crop science)
Prof. Peter Boamah (Bolga Polytechnic)
Prof John Owusu (Koforidua Technical University)
Dr. Rebecca Owusu (DAE)
Prof. Annor Frempong
Prof Nana De-graft Acquach
Prof. E. A. Ampofo (Soil Science dept, UCC)
Dr. Jane Mbolle Chah (Nigeria)
Prof Isaac Dukuh (Bolga Polytechnic)
Dr. R.S. Amoah (University of Cape Coast)
Dr Francis Kumi (University of Cape Coast)
Mr Washington K. T. Willie (Liberia)
Mr. Joseph Niwagaba (Uganda)
Dr. Enock Duodu (UEW)
Dr. Francisca A. Ansah (University of Energy & Natural Resources)
Dr. Newlove Afoakwah (University for Development Studies)
Dr. Ransford O. Darko (University of Cape Coast)
Our achievement was then captured by Agilent 2018 Corporate Social Responsibility Report (https://www.agilent.com/about/companyinfo/sustainability/) Titled Fingerprinting Rice: Fighting Food Fraud, Saving Lives
Some photos when the technique was tested in the market place and captured in CSR report
The team agreed that a rapid screening approach that would work in the field was critical, and that hand-held molecular spectroscopy was a good option. At the same time, they worked on developing an extensive library of molecular fingerprints using thousands of rice samples from China, India, Ghana and Vietnam. The rice fingerprints could be stored in the digital cloud, ready to access during rice testing.
Presentation of final research output before submission of thesis for examination
Students will undertake a field and or laboratory research project in any aspect of fisheries science and present a thesis for examination. Students will also make at least two seminar presentations during the research and thesis preparation, as well as an oral defense of the thesis.
presentation of thesis proposal
