4H Ghana calls for collaboration with GES

Koforidua, July 15,
GNA – The Executive Director of 4H Ghana, a non-governmental organization,
which
  focuses on youth leadership
development, Mr Kweku Boateng Appiah has called for a close collaboration
between his organization and the Ghana Education Service(GES).

He said such a
collaboration would help identify and train the future leaders of the country,
adding that, currently, 4H Ghana has about 62,000 members across six regions in
the country, established in schools and the communities.

Mr Appiah said most
of the 4H Clubs have established school and community gardens for training of
the youth in modern commercial agricultural practices and the use of high
quality seeds .

He was speaking at
the close of the meeting of AgriCorps volunteers of the USA, who are helping 4H
Ghana to implement the school and community gardening project at Koforidua.

AgriCorps is a
non-governmental organization that specializes in mobilizing young American
professionals in agriculture and agricultural business to volunteer to help
Impact modern agriculture and agri-business on young people in the developing
world.

The close out
meeting was to enable the AgriCorps volunteers, who had stayed in the country
for 11 months, to share their experience and work in Ghana with the officials
of the 4H Ghana team.

Sharing his
experience in Ghana, Mr Ryan Tomlin, an agronomist and an AgriCorp Volunteer,
who stayed in Mensah Dawa, a farming community in the Upper Manya Krobo
District, said the people in the community mainly grow maize and cassava.

He said the main
concern of the farmers were the low returns for their investment in farming and
so he had to guide them to think of adopting the cultivation of cash crops.

Mr Tomlin said the
farmers settled on mango and cashew farming, but considering the cost of
production and management of the yields, the farmers finally settled on the
cultivation of cashew.

He therefore
supported the farmers to acquire cashew seedlings from the Brong Ahafo Region
to cultivate their first cashew farms.

Mr Tomlin said he
also helped the farmers to learn how to establish a cashew nursery to expand
their farms and expressed the desire to return to Ghana in three years’ time,
when the farmers would be harvesting their first fruits to help train them in
effective handling and marketing of their products.

Mr Merle Lee Mullet,
an agric-economist with the AgriCorp volunteers said he helped the pupils of
Akatakyiwa St. Michael Catholic Basic School in the Central Region to establish
a commercial school garden to raise funds for the pupils and the school.

Mr Mullet said he
was able to get the Department of Agriculture of the University of Cape Coast
and the Central Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Food and
Agriculture(MOFA) to collaborate with the school over the school garden.

He said with his
support, an excursion was organized for members of 4H Club of the school to the
University of Cape Coast, which happened to be the only time many of the pupils
had travelled outside Akatakyiwa.

GNA

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