Enforce law on plant variety protection — Registrar-General
The Registrar-General, Grace Ama Issahaque, has called for the enforcement of the Plant Variety Protection law to protect the horticultural industry and prevent people from wrongfully benefiting from others' discoveries.
The plant variety protection is an industrial property right that allows breeders, farmers and growers who discover and engineer or develop and grow new varieties of plants to benefit from their investment by acquiring exclusive rights to that new variety for a period of up to 25 years.
She said the rationale for protection stemmed from the fact that plant breeding was a long and often expensive process.
"However, at the end of that process, many new plant varieties can be very easily and quickly reproduced.
"Therefore, a system of protection is needed to allow breeders to recover their investment," the Registrar-General said.
She was speaking at the 13th edition of the Ghana Garden and Flower Show in Accra.
Garden show
The Ghana Garden and Flower Show, the flagship event of the Ghana Garden and Flower Movement, which started last Saturday, runs till September 28, 2025.
It is on the theme: “Urban places, green spaces".
About 100 exhibitors are exhibiting different varieties of flowers to drive the floral export markets.
The show is being put together by Stratcomm Africa.
Ms Issahaque said under Plant Variety Protection, where a breeder acquired such a right, anyone who desired to produce, reproduce, sell, market or export the variety generally requires the breeder’s authorisation.
"This allows the breeder to generate various forms of revenue from this innovation.
"It also encourages competition between breeders to continuously experiment to produce flora with improved characteristics that benefit the market and introduce new varieties to our community," she said.
Export
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Stratcomm Africa, Esther Cobbah, attributed the growth in the show over the years to international relationship-building, relevance, and resilience in service delivery.
She called on Ghanaians, especially the corporate world, to help in addressing the country's green space deficits.
Esther Cobbah admonished corporate Ghana that, rather than the seasonal decorations on their premises, they should make it a habit to actively contribute towards restoring urban green spaces.
Urbanisation
The Secretary-General, Climate Vulnerable Forum and Vulnerable Twenty Secretariat, Mohamed Nasheed, said urban trees and greenery were no longer about decoration, but stood at the heart of providing solutions to the warming planet.
"Our cities are growing fast. They are also growing hotter, more polluted, and more vulnerable to extreme weather," he said.
Mr Mohamed said flowers and trees had become even more important in recent times due to climate change because they protected humans from the ferocious sun and massive storms.]
