Agrihouse Foundation, an agribusiness organisation, has launched the 5th edition of their flagship programme – the Agricultural students’ Career Guidance & Mentorship Dialogue Bootcamp (AG-STUD).
AG-STUD is an initiative designed to develop agriculture students and beginner agribusinesses, and expose them to dynamics of the market through education-mentoring, training and coaching, and leadership programmes essential for achieving success in agriculture and agribusiness.
This year’s edition will be held from 28th March to 1st April 2022 at the GNAT Hall in Accra. In all, 500 students (90 will be camped and 410 will be going from their homes daily) from 30 universities, colleges and secondary schools from Ghana and neighbouring countries will be participating.
This year’s edition will be held under the theme ‘Digitalisation-the enabler, the game changer, and the future for the Agri-Youth’.
Speaking to the media during the launch, Agrihouse Foundation founder Alberta Akyaa Akosa emphasised the need to focus on digitisation as a game-changer for agriculture, and urged government to see it as a key intervention to make agribusiness sustainable.
Ms. Akosa further elaborated some objectives they hope to achieve with the AG-STUD bootcamp.
“The bootcamp will seek to build the leadership capabilities of students and beginner agribusinesses, provide seed capital (cash/input), assist students and beginner businesses to put together winnable and well refined business ideas, and also provide a platform for companies/institutions to recruit interns/employees who have been ‘developed’ and can easily fit into the industry,” she said.
Country Director for OCP Africa, Samuel Oduro-Asare – giving a remark at the launch, expressed excitement that the bootcamp will be focusing on digitising agriculture.
He explained that Ghana is fast becoming a digitised economy like the rest of the world, hence it is vital and prudent for young people to be mentored, enlightened and prepared to function in this new age.
“At OCP, we acknowledge how swiftly technology and digitisation is beginning to play significant roles in agricultural activities, because much of our own operations and projects reflect this fact. Through our ‘Agri-tech Innovation’ initiative, we continuously explore digital agriculture and other innovations that increase crop yields and assist farmers with necessary inputs and marketing services.
“One is our School Lab programme, which is a mobile soil laboratory that travels to meet farmers where they are. We help them test their soil, and then make fertiliser application recommendations for their soil and crop mix for free. The School Lab has already helped 350,000 farmers across Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire,” Mr. Oduro-Asare noted.
Director of Human Resource, Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Lawoetey Tettey, urged the students to make very good use of whatever they learn from the bootcamp to better their career path.
“The business bit of agriculture must be actualised. That is why we at the ministry now are emphasising agribusiness more, on food processing and other things that we think can create jobs for the youth. We have left agriculture to the elderly for too long, and it is about time we accepted the need to see agriculture as an area for business; an area that can create impact for all of us, an area that can form the economy of Ghana. I urge you not to feel shy, but be proud of the area that you have chosen and concentrate. I want to encourage you to take this as an opportunity and use what you learn well to build your career,” he said.
