PROJECT

LET'S GO FARMING

BACKGROUND:

Ghana has the potential to increase its agricultural production significantly. However, except mores efforts are put in to bring on board the enthusiasm and exuberance of the youth to serve as the power bank, energy and skills driving agriculture, Ghana may not achieve and sustain this aim.

Unfortunately, in Ghana, agriculture is considered as the reserve for the village folks, under privileged and uneducated. It thereforedoes not attract the youth especially graduates even though unemployed. This is due to the lack of knowledge on the economic opportunities that abound in agriculture and agribusinessfor their financial freedom.

Meanwhile the agricultural sector provides a vast variety of employment opportunities and sustainability in the areas of:

- Construction of irrigation systems

- Drainage systems

-Veterinary/extension services

- Processing

-Branding/packaging

- Transportation/distribution

- Exports management

- Marketing and many more.

The industry also provides opportunities in the agro engineering and equipment provision, agro chemical/inputs sector and the emerging trends in e-agriculture and digital farming.

 

On the other hand, there are a section of the youth who are desperately in search for jobs regardless of the nature or location of jobs, this group have considered agriculture but are faced with financial difficulties especially in the area of land acquisition/preparation and the day-to-day running of the farm.

 

 

With the fast growing population, high incidence of unemployment and disguised unemployment, the agriculture sector provides us with more employment opportunities. In this way, significance of agriculture emerges more and more.

 

Upon our interactions with someunemployed youth (rural/urban), we have come to a conclusion that there is an urgent need for a move to drive the attention and interest of the youth to agriculture, encourage same to channel their energy and time towards the industry for wealth creation and to save government from youth pressure on employment issues.

Against this background, we the above mentioned organization have designed a project dubbed“LET’S GO FARMING.”

This program is designed to attract the attention of the youth through advocacy, train and resource them to become commercial farmers and or entrepreneurs in agribusiness according to their area of interest.

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The concept consists of three components, ADVOCACY, TRAINING AND SUPPORT

 

ADVOCACY:

• Traditional and social media promotion (campaign) for agriculture and agribusiness for wealth creation

• A patriotic sound track by influential group of artistes composed around the theme, “let’s go farming”

• Television/radio endorsements by industry players and opinion leaders

• Workshops, lectures and outreach events on the potentials of agriculture in sustainable wealth creation

• Create a data base of subscribers (prospective beneficiaries)

• Identify beneficiary’s individual constraint for appropriate training/support

 

 

 

 

 

TRAINING/SUPPORT:

Under this segment, we have the L-earn(learn and earn) program.

The L-earn program establishes the AED Centers (Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Development Centers).

The AED center is a managed vast mechanized farm enclave for both crop and livestock farming. The center will provide technical, logistical and man power support to train and aid subscribers who qualify to benefit from the program. Each beneficiary will go through step by step tuition from start to harvest at the AED center. This is to ensure proper and smooth transfer of knowledgein best practices to the beneficiary (learner).

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At the AED center: For crop, fish and livestock farming,

• For crop farming, an allocation of a minimum of 2 hectares will be made available to thebeneficiary. The beneficiary will be attached to a farm coach (an experienced farmer) and a required number of farm workers (labourers) to form a team.

• The farm coach will supervise the day to day activities on the farm whilst training the beneficiary (learner/owner).

• The beneficiary gets seedlings, fertilizer, other required inputs,extension services and all other related support for free.

• After harvest, the beneficiary earns 100% of the proceeds but is required to give 30% to his partners (farm coach and laborers) as remuneration.

• This will continue for three farming seasons when it is expected that one has gained the necessary experience, skills, capital and passion to start a farm on their own.

The same concept applies to fish, poultry and other livestock farming where relevant infrastructure and feed and technical support will be provided

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