5th Women in agribusiness launched
The founder of Miss Agriculture Ghana, Oheneba Akosua Kyerewaa, has launched the fifth Women in Agribusiness festival and exhibition in Accra. It forms part of the anniversary celebration of Miss Agriculture Ghana.
As a product of ‘Ghana’s Most Beautiful’, she said, it was through the contest that she conceived the idea to go into agriculture even without the basic knowledge of the subject.
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Ms Kyerewaa said Miss Agriculture Ghana had been able to produce four queens since its establishment in 2018.
She noted that this year, “we want to identify ourselves with the processing aspect of agribusiness. What innovative thing can we do to support the industry?”
She said that there were lots of small and medium enterprises that were adding up to the growth of the country but they as young women needed to bring up innovative ideas that would improve the agriculture industry.
“We believe that there are a lot of SMEs adding up to the growth of the country but in terms of processing we haven’t done much. So as young women, we want to really introduce innovative ideas that will improve the industry” she added.
Ms Kyerewaa hoped that the contestants would come up with ideas which would add value to the nation’s already existing raw materials.
Appeal
The Coordinator for Ghana National Egg Campaign Secretariat (GNECS), Mrs Comfort Kyerewa Acheampong, appealed to authorities responsible for agriculture to bring back Core Agriculture in the school curriculum.
“Core Agriculture must come back to the school’s curriculum if we are to encourage the youth to take up agriculture especially women. That way the youth will take a second look at agriculture,” she added
She noted that encouraging the youth in agriculture could be the key to food security in the country and that if we were to leave “our youth to be doing things that are not sustainable, we are running into a big mess as a country”
The government in the past, she said, added agriculture to the secondary school curriculum as an elective and core subject; where every student studied agriculture as a major subject.
Innovations
The Director for Women in Agriculture Development at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Paulina Addy, said the country needed to redefine agriculture to move forward.
“If we stay with the original definition of agriculture, we will stick to seed, tractors and never move but if we leave that sphere, then we will start talking about processing equipment to transform the produce into diverse products,” she said.
Mrs Addy noted that there were opportunities that could be explored to determine how we could advance in the industry.