President Urges Youth To Venture Into Agriculture |

The President of the Republic, Nana, Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has opened the “Presidential Conference on Youth in Agriculture” with a call on the Ghanaian youth to take advantage of the incentive packages inherent in the programme and venture into agriculture.

Delivering a keynote address at the Conference to formally launch the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) collaboration on the Youth in Agriculture programme at the University of Ghana in Accra on Wednesday, 18th October 2023, the President noted that youth unemployment was a challenge to the nation and the government was committed to addressing the scourge through innovative interventions like this agriculture programme.

He therefore urged the youth to rally around the initiative to form cooperatives and partnerships to derive the benefits to accrue from implementation of the programme.

He explained that with the offtake arrangement and the incentive packages spelt out in the initiative, there was no excuse for the youth not to venture into agriculture.

He predicted that successful implementation of the programme would lead to food supply increase and a decline in food cost in Ghana and also expressed hope that Ghana would witness a drastic reduction in food inflation to a single digit by the end of his tenure in office.

The Minister of Employment, Labour Relations and Pensions, Hon Ignatius Baffour Awuah, in his remarks, also noted that the Ministry remained resolute to exploring various avenues of addressing youth unemployment and agriculture holds promise in that regard.

He explained that one of the quickest solutions to addressing unemployment is to harness agriculture saying studies have revealed that agriculture is a sector that’s not well-tapped.

The Chief Executive Officer of YEA, Mr. Kofi Baah Agyepong encouraged the youth to be interested in agriculture.

He explained that the detailed incentive packages is to motivate young farmers to venture into the sector and to address the stigma that young graduates desirous of going into farming face.