Workshop on youth participation in agriculture opens in Accra
A five-day workshop with the objective of building the capacity of the youth in agriculture and enhancing their participation in the sector has opened in Accra.
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The workshop seeks to strengthen the quality of youth work in agriculture by developing cooperation on an international level, as well as improving social inclusion of the youth in the sector.
Co-funded by the European Commission (EC), the seminar is under the auspices of the EC’s Erasmus Plus project dubbed: “Agro-sustainable agricultural entrepreneurship for young workers in Africa and Europe”.
It is the third of transnational seminars organised under the 20-month project designed for the youth to exchange ideas on innovative and best practices in agriculture.
Two of the workshops have already been held in Italy and Cameroon.
Hosted by the Foundation for Intercultural Learning and Exchange (FILE-Ghana), participants were drawn from Ghana, Cameroon, Italy and Greece.
Profitable venture
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Director of FILE-Ghana, Mr Stephen Duodu, said the agro project sought to promote the involvement of the youth in agriculture, as well as promote agriculture as a business venture.
Getting the youth to accept agriculture and viewing it as a profitable profession, he said, would reduce rural/urban migration, the high unemployment rate facing the country, as well as ensure food security and enhance economic growth.
He said e-learning courses had been introduced as part of the project to enable beneficiaries to participate in the project.
Topics to be studies at the workshop, he said, included entrepreneurship, business skills, agro-processing, marketing, among others.
The workshop, he said, was to promote cooperation and mobility activities that had a positive impact on the qualitative development of youth work, policies and systems in the agricultural sector.
Importance of agriculture
In his address, the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of Italy, Mr Lorenzo Pinelli, said agriculture was an integral part of every nation and so promoting agro-business projects among new entrepreneurs was the key element for development in Africa.
He said the agricultural sector did not only employ a larger part of the population but also had a significant impact on GDP growth, hence the need to encourage the youth into the sector.
As the future generation, he said, it was important to position the youth and prepare them to improve their living conditions through education and capacity building.