KNUST grabs $1M grant to produce Palm Weevil Larvae on large scale

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is embarking on a fight against protein deficiency in Ghana by using Palm  Weevil Larvae, locally known as ‘Akorkono’.

The University has received $1 million from the Bill Clinton Foundation and 112,000 Canadian dollars from the Grand Challenges Canada Foundation to start the project.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Kwasi Obiri-Danso announced this during the 2016 founders’ day special Congregation in Kumasi.

These palm larvae, a delicacy in some rural parts of Ghana, grow in dead palm trees.

" Akorkono is one of the edible insects and it's delicacy in the forest zones of Ghana," he said

The project will breed them on a large scale to serve as the main protein ingredient in the rural diet.

It’s part of a fight against protein malnutrition in developing countries like Ghana using insects.

“In what is known as Akorkono or palm larvae project we have 1 million dollars from the bill Clinton foundation and 112 , 000 dollars from the grand challenge foundation and  is this was to find a quicker and efficient means of solving protein malnutrition in the developing countries,” says Prof Obiri-Danso.

KNUST and Aspire Food Group are promoting this initiative in Ghana under the name, Palm Larvae project.

Meanwhile, Professor Obiri-Danso says the university will admit most of its brilliant teaching and research assistants into postgraduate programmes.

They will be employed as graduate assistants and given monthly stipends.

Professor Obiri-Danso announced a nine percent increased in undergraduate female students’ enrollment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics programmes in the 2016/2017 academic year.