The School of Agriculture of the University of Ghana in collaboration with the AP Oak Company Limited has organised a seminar to expose students of the school to the entrepreneurial avenues open to them in the agriculture and agribusiness sector.
Held on the theme “Exploring Agribusiness opportunities for Youth Development” the event took the many youth, present at the WACCBIP at the Department of Biochemist, through the various opportunities in the Horticulture value chain.
Motivation
The Managing Director of AP Oak Company Limited, Ms Portia Agyei Yeboah, explained that the event was birthed to introduce the teeming youth to some other alternative sources of livelihood. Especially opportunities in agriculture and agribusiness sector.
“It’s heart breaking to see abled young people not having any source of livelihood and wondering about. I see a waste of life going on which makes me become scared of the kind of generation we are bringing up”.
“If the youth have no jobs and there is so much social deviance going on, then we are not sure of the future”. Hence the need to encourage them to explore opportunities in agriculture and agribusiness. He further explained in an interaction with Ghana Talks Business at the event.
Advise
The Managing Director of the Urban Jungle, Mr Selorm Agudu, for his part, advised the youth to take the bold step to venture into the agribusiness.
He said the time for them to start was now, and that they should begin researching on the market before deciding on what to farm.
Again he added that the biggest revolution the country saw in agriculture was during the era of Acheampong when he introduced “operation feed yourself”, adding that the crop of farmers that are fizzling out now came from that period.
Consequently, he said there was the need to revive that era to engender greater growth in the sector.
He, therefore, urged the youth to ” start now, start now”, adding further that “plant something in your backyard, watch it grow. It starts from there”.
