Reward for 3 young farmers
Three young farmers at Tumu in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West Region have been rewarded by three organisations for adopting agriculture as a business.
The three, Mr Nagali Adams, 28, Mr Dajan Adams, 37, and Ms Sakina Kasim, 26, all university graduates, are into maize farming.
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As part of their reward, each of the three young farmers has been presented with 1.5 metric tonnes of fertiliser to support the establishment of an acre model farm, certificates and beverages.
This forms part of a sponsorship package from the three organisations who have adopted these three farmers with the intention of supporting them to be successful and also serve as role models for young people in farming.
Partners support
The three organisations, Nestle Ghana Limited, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Sahel Grains, under a strategic partnership, will provide the necessary training and support to enable the three farmers to become role models who will build the capacity of other young farmers to improve their skills and knowledge for an enhanced livelihood.
The strategic partnerships, formed by the three organisations in July 2019, is dubbed "Youth Agri-preneurship Development Programme (YADIS ).
Under the partnership, Nestlé is providing technical assistance to improve the quality of grains produced for the production of Cerelac products, AGRA provides financial and technical support while Sahel Grains implements the YADIS programme and buys the grains produced by the farmers for further cleaning and aggregation.
Transforming agriculture
At a ceremony to present the items to the farmers, the Head of Agriculture Services in charge of Nestlé in Central and West Africa, Mr Faith Ermis, said so far the partnership had trained 226 young farmers, including 72 females, in good agronomic practices to eliminate post-harvest losses among others.
Mr Ermis explained that the partnership by the three organisations was to enhance the skills of the youth in modern techniques of agriculture for them to see it as a form of business to improve their lot and reduce the rural-urban migration, adding that their aim was for the youth to achieve a minimum income of $2,400 per annum.
The Country Director of AGRA, Mr Kofi Biney, said the partnership would assist in the transformation of agriculture from peasantry into a commercial venture, with produce which met the demands of multinational companies such as Nestlé Ghana Ltd.