Ghana does not need to finish researching the baobab tree before turning it into a commercial crop, according to the Ho Technical University team leading the country’s push to domesticate one of West Africa’s most abundant but underexploited tree.
“What we have done now is enough to go commercial,” Prof. Kenneth Fafa Egbadzor, Director of Research and Innovation at Ho Technical University (HTU), said in an interview with The High Street Journal, arguing that Ghana need not wait for research to be complete before farmers and processors begin generating revenue from the plant, much as commercial mainstays such as cocoa remain under continuous study decades after their initial domestication.
HTU has successfully engineered a fast-maturing variety of the baobab tree, positioning it to become Ghana’s next lucrative export crop. The revolutionary research cuts the tree’s maturity period from the traditional 30 years down to less than three years, completely changing the economic outlook for local farmers.
The HTU’s baobab program, launched in 2019, has already produced early commercial products and drawn interest from a South African alcoholic beverage producer and research funders in Germany, even as Prof. Egbadzor says the government of Ghana has yet to back the project with any funding of its own. President Mahama who heard about this breakthrough for the first time last Friday, has however pledged to support it.
From a Journal Article to a National Research Program
Prof. Egbadzor’s interest in the baobab traces back to an academic paper he read about more than 300 traditional uses of the tree across West Africa. After joining HTU in 2018, he pitched university management on a dedicated baobab research program, which formally began in 2019.
Since then, the team has assembled a germplasm bank of 109 distinct baobab accessions collected from across Ghana, the genetic raw material Prof. Egbadzor says is the foundation for any future commercial breeding and product development. HTU has separately reported cutting the tree’s time to first fruiting to under three years, down from as long as 30 in the wild, a gain Prof. Egbadzor points to as evidence the crop is further along than its reputation for slow growth suggests.
Early Products, International Backers
The university has already translated early-stage research into consumer products, including baobab wine and cider, with a beer variant in development. Researchers have also tested the tree’s root tuber in salads and are experimenting with a broader range of food applications, Prof. Egbadzor said.
Funding so far has come almost entirely from outside Ghana. A South African alcoholic-beverage company that uses baobab in its spirits contributed toward the university’s germplasm-collection efforts, according to Egbadzor. Separately, HTU has received roughly €54,000 ($59,000) from a German government’s culture and science ministry to map baobab distribution across Ghana, a project scheduled to conclude by the end of this year and intended to guide conservation and future site selection for commercial planting.
The university has also built academic partnerships with institutions including Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Germany, Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland, and universities in the United Kingdom, Namibia and Botswana, collaborations, Prof. Egbadzor said, reflect HTU’s position as a global leader in baobab genetics and agronomy, even as commercialization lags.
A Case for a Dedicated Research Center
Prof. Egbadzor is pressing for the establishment of a standalone baobab research center at HTU, modeled on Ghana’s existing crop-specific institutions such as the Oil Palm Research Institute and the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. Under his proposal, the center would be certified to produce seedlings using laboratory techniques too specialized, and in some cases too hazardous, for ordinary farmers to carry out themselves, while also training extension officers to support the wider value chain.
The case for baobab as a commercial crop, he argued, rests partly on its ecological range. The tree grows across Ghana’s driest zones, including the Upper East and Upper West regions’ Sudan Savannah, as well as in wetter areas such as the Volta region, and is fire-resistant once established, traits that could make it viable in marginal agricultural zones unsuited to crops such as oil palm. Trees on HTU’s campus in Ho fruit year-round, Prof. Egbadzor said, unlike trees in northern Ghana, which fruit only once annually.
Government Support Still Absent
Despite the international interest, Prof. Egbadzor said HTU has yet to secure funding from the Ghanaian government. The university has submitted proposals to state economic development bodies and to the Bank of Ghana, he said, but has not received a response.
He pointed to government seedling-distribution programs for crops such as coconut as a model he hopes could eventually be extended to baobab, framing the tree’s low agrochemical requirements as an advantage over more input-intensive crops. “Investment in research is not as expensive as other crops,” he said.
For now, Prof. Egbadzor said, HTU’s baobab program continues largely on the strength of international grants and academic partnerships, a gap he argues is holding back a plant he believes Ghana is uniquely positioned to commercialize at scale.
