Agrihouse Foundation is set to host the 6th edition of the Agricultural Students’ Career Guidance & Mentorship Dialogue Bootcamp (AGSTUD Africa), starting Monday, March 27 to Friday, March 31, 2023.
Focused on the theme: ‘5 Years of Grooming, Training and Empowerment – Where we Are Now with our Agribusiness’, this year’s bootcamp will take place in Accra daily, at the GNAT Conference Hall.
The camp will host about seventy (70) agricultural students, young agribusiness beginners, and agriculture enthusiasts from across the country to receive agribusiness-focused entrepreneurial mentoring and coaching; and these will further participate in several hands-on capacity-building sessions, aimed at equipping them to with knowledge and skills to establish sustainable agri-businesses in their schools and within their communities.
The bootcamp, which annually involves about thirty agric colleges and universities in the country, also makes room for the students and agri-beginners to participate in corporate and field tours aimed at familiarising them with different kinds of agribusiness operations in the country to ask questions and strike business opportunities with the agribusiness owners.
In a press statement, the Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, said while the bootcamp has directly groomed, trained and empowered over 750 beneficiaries, and indirectly, about 2,500 participants over the last five (5) years, this year’s event is focused on taking stock of progress made, and celebrating the successes of the young agripreneurs.
“We are bringing on board all past students and agribusiness beginners who have participated in AGSTUD Bootcamp in the last the 5 years to share their success stories, especially the impacts AGSTUD Bootcamp has had on their lives and on their agribusinesses,” she stressed.
While the event will be tracking progress and celebrating achievements of the alumni, the Executive Director said it would also be an opportunity to inspire and empower first-time participants to uncover untapped agribusiness potentials within themselves. “This is to inspire the Agri-Youth and to further show our partners and sponsors how their contributions toward the AGSTUD Bootcamp is annually making impact in the lives of our Agri-Youth,” she added.
In the past five (5) years, AGSTUD Bootcamp has empowered beneficiaries, like James Elikem Brown – a past student of Ingleshie Amanfrom SHS, to venture into pineapple farming. James is not only cultivating a 3-acre pineapple farm, but he has also ventured into pineapple processing, and has registered his fruit juice company with the Food and Drugs Authority. He has employed some colleagues who are university graduates to help him on the farm.
Dauda Mustapha, a student of the All-Nations University, who was a part of the AGSTUD Bootcamp in 2020, was supported with agric inputs to start a watermelon farm. Through the training and leadership skills acquired at the bootcamp, he diversified by going into cowpea production as well. Presently, he has added 5 acres of yellow corn to his crop production and is supplying to poultry farmers in the Northern Region.
Obed Asamoah, who was part of the 2019 Cohorts, received a seed capital of GH¢500 to start his mushroom farm. Within two years, Obed scaled up his production and currently supplies to African shops in the US and UK on order. For a while, he served as a trainer at our Livestock, Poultry, Fisheries Training and Tradeshow. Through hard work, Obed has now earned a scholarship to pursue graduate studies in Asia.
This year’s bootcamp will host agric students from thirty (30) agric colleges and universities. Resource persons from across the agricultural value chain and related sectors are being tapped to lead the various mentoring, coaching and competence-based capacity-building sessions that will take place at the bootcamp this year.
Over the years, the bootcamp has attracted dignitaries, including the Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia and MP for the Klottey Korle Constituency, Dr. Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings, who is the also Patron of the event. The Bootcamp, in the last five (5) years, has received technical and financial supports from organization, including OCP Africa, Agricultural Development Bank, Co-operative Development Foundation of Canada (CDF-Canada), among others.
