Agriculture employs a large number of people across all of Ghana’s regions. But the field has long been unattractive to young people because the sector has not rewarded those who enter it.
But now the innovative oil producer, Kosmos Energy Ghana, has established a new programme to make the field more likely to attract young people by encouraging the use of technology to solve the sector’s challenges.
Agriculture only happens to be the starting point – a pilot project – for the Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC), a social investment initiative by the oil producer aimed at helping to build a brighter future for the country and its communities by tackling some of the country’s key challenges.
As a way of giving back to society, this project identifies and supports the sources of value creation for stakeholders in a chosen sector instead of employing the usual philanthropic approach.
The Kosmos Innovation Centre looks to transform the way agriculture is pursued in the country, as well as change the profile of the people involved in it. It seeks to breathe a new life into the sector by making it more attractive to young people with fresh ideas.
Some challenges to scale
But an ageing population is not the only challenge bedevilling the sector. The sector is also faced with post-harvest losses, the use of crude and outdated implements, low and poor agro-chemical application, inadequate finance, poor transportation and lack of markets for produce.
It is common knowledge, for instance, that in spite of the country not being food secure, the little it produces is often left to rot, courtesy poor agricultural infrastructure.
Novelty
This intervention by Kosmos is, therefore, a marked departure from the traditional approach to corporate social responsibility which hinged on hand-outs. The KIC has the capacity to empower many Ghanaians – especially the youth – to venture into agribusiness or agriculture to produce quality agro-products competitively.
The KIC will focus on the intersection of information and communications technology (ICT) and agriculture, with the goal of inspiring entrepreneurs to transform Ghana’s agriculture sector and reinvent the value chain for increased economic development.
The approach – collaboration, incubation and acceleration
The KIC will use collaboration to foster partnerships to tackle challenges as a team. This will start with workshops and seminars that bring together the best and brightest minds from a range of fields, such as business, agriculture, technology, finance and academia to share ideas, identify challenges and brainstorm ways to resolve them using commercially viable solutions.
The country’s universities, science and research institutions have over the years conducted several studies, which could for instance be of use in this regard. The interaction with experts will also help disabuse the negative perception people have about agriculture as a viable venture.
Therefore, after the seminars the youth would form enterprises either in groups or as individuals to develop proposals for an agric sector intervention.
With these they would be nurtured into promising start-up companies through formal competitions focused on innovation. The programme will challenge young entrepreneurs to use technology to develop commercially viable solutions to development challenges within the chosen sector.
Through these, selected entrepreneurs will receive seed funding, technical assistance and mentorship to help them turn their ideas into reality for implementation.
While nurturing start-ups, the KIC will also be looking at how to accelerate the development of promising small businesses.
Students already excited
Some graduates in agriculture have welcomed the initiative by Kosmos, saying it would help many of their colleagues who studied agriculture since it will make them think twice about abandoning agriculture to pursue careers in banking or other white-collar fields.
“The truth of the matter is that we need the environment KIC is creating, where fresh graduates and young people in the sector will be mentored and turned into entrepreneurs,” said Ms Rebecca McCarthy, who holds a Bachelor and a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
Graduates in agricultural fields often “lack direction. The best we can do is practise our trade as agric scholars working with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s departments as consultants and extension officers,” Ms McCarthy said.
Interventions such as the KIC are long overdue, she said. “There should be such initiatives right in the schools to mentor young people interested in the sector who are eager to add value to agricultural productivity.
Kosmos country manager
The Vice-President and Country Manager of Kosmos Energy Ghana, Mr Joe Mensah, indicated that the establishment of the KIC marked the next chapter in the company’s history as a partner in Ghana’s future.
“This initiative reflects the same contrarian thinking and entrepreneurial spirit that helped us get where we are today, except this time we will be the angel investor who supports someone else’s dream, and in the process, we hope to play a role in solving some of Ghana’s most pressing developmental challenges,” Mr Mensah said.
He emphasised that the programme aimed to increase the interest of the youth in agriculture, which so far, has been regarded as a dull and unrewarding activity in spite of its huge potential for economic growth.
Stakeholders’ perspectives
A Commissioner at the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Mr K. Jantuah, deemed the initiative another milestone in the company’s relationship with the country, which would have a great impact on the development of the private sector and at the same time the living standards of our people.
The NDPC, he said, would situate such initiatives within the context of the 40-year National Development Plan, which would be a dynamic document to be revised by Parliament every 10 years.
To the NDPC, KIC meets the age-old adage, “it is better to teach a person to fish than just give him or her fish” and this is what Kosmos Energy’s new initiative sets out to do.
To the Ministry of Food & Agriculture, the choice of agriculture as a focus of this investment was timely and appropriate, as the sector increasingly requires additional investment and innovation.
“This support to the agriculture sector in view of its contribution to poverty reduction and employment generation may be Kosmos’ most critical intervention yet. It is aligned with the interventions of the government and complements these efforts,” the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, said.
The minister pledged support for the programme, which he said passed as an evidence-based initiative to attract more interest in agriculture and agribusiness, which would have a strong socio-economic impact on the Ghanaian economy. — GB