30 Youth undergo training in pig, catfish farming
Thirty youth have benefitted from intensive training in pig and fish farming to broaden their scope of knowledge and to enable them to expand their farming business.
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The training was organised by the Livelihood and Advocacy Directorate of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocesan Development Organisation (NABOCADO), a faith-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).
As part of the pilot training, the directorate intends to establish a farmer training school dubbed “Institute for sustainable farming” to train the youth, women and men with passion in farm enterprises to enrich their knowledge and skills to engage farming as a business.
It is a partnership between NABOCADO in Ghana and Caritas Uganda and Caritas Germany in an effort to strengthen south and south-north cooperation between the three countries.
Address unemployment
Opening the training at the Farmer Training Centre in Pusu Namongo in the Talensi District in the Upper East Region, the Catholic Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese, Most Rev. Alfred Agyenta, said the rationale behind the training was to ensure that the young people did not get frustrated.
He stated that unemployment was on the increase among the youth as many of them after completing school continue to idle about, saying: “When the youth do not get jobs, they obviously slip into frustration”.
He indicated that the church through its NGO is addressing the fundamental problem of unemployment and at the same time supporting them to set up their own farm businesses to contribute to the growth of the agricultural sector.
“We are committed to assisting the youth to establish their own agricultural enterprises to earn income to live dignified lives in the society,” Bishop Agyenta stated.
Work closely
Most Rev. Agyenta said the church was always seeking to work closely with the government to improve the living conditions of the people, adding that “it is an open secret that the government is limited and overstretched in tackling the developmental challenges facing the nation”.
He added that the church was not only concerned about the spiritual growth of the people but was also interested in the development of the social and economic lives of the citizenry as well.
He charged the participants to ensure the success of the training since they were pioneers and that their successes would enable others to also benefit from the intervention.
Pork import
The Director of the Livelihood and Advocacy Directorate, NABOCADO, Dominic Avea, said the organisation observed that the participation of the youth in agriculture was minimal, hence the intervention to encourage them to go into agriculture.
For instance, he said Ghana imported pork from other countries worth millions of Ghana Cedis annually and added that the move was to support the youth to fill the gap by producing more of the meat locally.
He told the beneficiaries that the organisation would follow up after the training to see how they were putting the skills acquired to good use for the benefit of themselves and society.
A beneficiary, Felicia Atombila, who has been rearing pigs for the past five years, thanked the organisation for the training as she said it would go a long way to help her control the diseases that usually affected the pigs so as to save their lives.
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