Hundreds Of Youth To Acquire Skills In Agriculture

More than hundreds of youth are currently going through Agriculture training to acquire skills in the area of crop production, irrigation, poultry, livestock and agri-business as part of Okuapemhene's quest to empower the youth to be self-employed and improve their standard of living.

The five day Agriculture Skills training is an initiative under the auspices of the Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo Foundation in collaboration with the Toutele Agriculture College based in South Africa to equip the youth with the requisite information in various sectors of Agriculture and empower them to gain self-employment.

Speaking with the media on the first of the training, a Board member of the Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo Foundation, Nana Kwasi Osew explained that, the rationale behind the initiative was to develop the youth to gain some requisite skills in Agriculture to help improve the food security situation in the country as well as addressing the unemployment obstacles. He said if the youth of today did not embrace agriculture and improve food security, the country will in the near future suffer from hunger and also if we leave our fertile lands idle, foreigners will invade and take it over.

The Founder and Principal of Toutele Agriculture College, Dr. Gostina Gabbey Malope stated that, the focus of the initiative was to boost food production and Agric business to help improve food security sustainability and provide sustainable employment for the teeming unemployed youth.

She said food cost is becoming higher often globally and that, she wants to encourage the public to develop more interest in backyard gardens to help prevent the government from spending too much money feeding the people. She added that, in order to eliminate unemployable graduates in Africa, there is the need to prioritize Agriculture, stating, agriculture is the engine of life since everyone cannot survive without it.

She revealed that, there are crops which has a lot of medicinal purposes that we are not aware of in Africa but are only consumed by poor, pointing out that, there are a lot of opportunities in Ghana when it comes to agriculture in the area of crop production since the soil fertility is very due its rich nutrients.

The Chief Executive Officer for the Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo Foundation, Emmanuel Asare Ntow also added that the youth are not focusing on agriculture and that, the initiative seeks to whip their interest in agriculture to help curb unemployment and contribute towards the effort in achieving sustainable food security as the world commence to battle food obstacles.Ebenezer Ayeh/