Agriculture education has received a big boost with the launch of the Ghana Agricultural Education Transformation Fund (GAFET), a landmark initiative to support sustainable financing for agricultural education, innovation and skills development in the country.
The initiative is expected to drive the transformation of agricultural educational institutions across the country.
An initial GH¢3.5 million has already been mobilised as seed money by the five funding partners, namely Farmerline Consult Ltd, New Age Agric Solutions Ltd, Tradeline Consult Ltd, Grow For Me Ltd and AgriSolve Ltd.
Agricultural education institutions face an estimated annual funding gap of GH¢12 million.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, who launched the initiative last Tuesday in Accra, invited other organisations to come on board and support the programme.
The immediate ambition, he said, was to grow the fund to GH¢10 million by December 2026 and to GH¢100 million by the end of 2028.
Mr Opoku said he was excited that, under his watch, he had witnessed a surge in public confidence in leadership, with people contributing resources towards finding solutions to some of the problems that had, for a long time, appeared intractable.
He said listening to the stories, it was evident that the road to destiny could never be smooth, and that “it is bumpy, tortuous and sometimes rough, but you have to demonstrate tenacity to be able to achieve your aims”.
He said national development was a shared responsibility, and that the private sector must not remain a spectator waiting for government to act.
Mr Opoku said the private sector must become an active partner in identifying challenges, mobilising resources and delivering sustainable solutions, stressing that while government should lead, society must build.
He said when the government provided direction, and the private sector contributed capital, innovation, expertise and efficiency, national aspirations could be transformed into enduring institutions.
“The Ghana Agricultural Education Transformation Fund is, therefore, a powerful demonstration of what public-private partnership can achieve. It reminds us that the future we desire will not be built by the government alone. It will be built through the collective effort of the government, businesses, development partners, institutions and citizens working together in the national interest,” he emphasised
He recognised the five pioneering Ghanaian agribusinesses, whose support had helped to mobilise the initial seed funding for the initiative, and said they understood the realities of the Ghanaian agriculture sector.
The Lead Coordinator of GAFET, Steven Nhyira Odarteifio, said no nation could transform its agriculture without first transforming institutions that educated, trained and inspired its future agriculture leaders.
Mr Odarteifio said for the first time in the history of the country, a coalition of Ghanaian-led agribusinesses had come together to invest not in their own balance sheets, but in the future of young agriculture students and graduates whose destinies were on the verge of obscurity and irrelevance.
He said the benefactor organisations were not the nation’s largest corporations, but medium-sized enterprises that had built their institutions through hard work and perseverance.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AgriSolve Ltd, Elorm Goh, said the organisation believed agriculture could change the fortunes of the country.
The CEO of Grow For Me Ltd, Nana Opoku Agyeman, said those in the sector “are transforming our destinies by ourselves”.
The General Manager of New Age Agric Solutions Ltd, Martin Tettey Nartey, said his company had always believed that the future of the country’s agriculture would not be built only in the field, but also in classrooms, laboratories and demonstration fields, among other settings.
The CEO of Tradeline Consult Ltd, Samuel Atiemo, said it was not too late to change the narrative of agriculture in the country.
The Financial Controller of Farmerline Consult Ltd, Bennet Nyasembi, said to create a sustainable environment, the company decided to embrace the idea.
At the event, five agriculture colleges presented their strategic plans to the sector minister.
Source: https://www.graphic.com.gh/
