Business News of Monday, 29 October 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-10-29
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister for Food and Agriculture
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister for Food and Agriculture, has called on all senior high schools in the country to support the Food Farms For Schools (FOFAS) which is under government’s Planting for Food and Jobs program.
Food Farms For Schools initiative which was launched a year ago at the Okuapeman Senior High School in Akropong is to help school authorities use available lands to farm.
Commending St.Peters Senior High School (Persco) in Nkwatia-Kwahu for cultivating over 20 acres under the Food Farms For Schools program, Afriyie Akoto called on all senior high school heads to engage the students in farming to encourage more youth to get into agriculture.
“The Food Farms For Schools is a national program, and Eastern Region is doing very well, I launched the program here in the region and last year 2017 only 6 schools engaged in it but this year a total of 26 schools are fully on board, and it is impressive with St. Peters cultivating 20 acres already”.
“I hope other regions will take a cue from this and encourage the schools to participate because it is a good source of income for the school and also gives them a positive mindset and attitude to farming. There is a whole directorate under my ministry called Youth in Agriculture working with youth in all the country, so this initiative will help us catch them young and let them know farming is a decent venture so all school heads should encourage and support the Food Farms For Schools program”.
Minister inaugurates GH¢43m irrigation dam
The Minister of Food and Agriculture had earlier opened a GHc43 million dam for the Komokli Community, a farming village near Oterkporlu in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region.
The dam is expected to irrigate over 60 hectares of farmland in the community to improve the yields of crops grown there.
The Minister, as part of his two-day working visit to the Region also handed over pumping machines for the dam and over 50 bags of organic fertiliser to the farmers.