Agriculture has no mentors or coaches and this is due to its historic negative perception. This is according to Mr. Alistair Djimatey- Public Relations Officer for Blue Skies Limited.
According to him, farmers over the years created and held onto the impression that farming is for pensioners or retirees.
Mr. Djimatey made the remark in an interview with Captain Adabugar on Rite FM’s Morning Ride.
The Blue Skies PRO who described agriculture as ‘pure business’ dispelled the notion that lack of mentorship accounted for the low level of youth participation in the sector.
According to him, mentorship is not what is required to lure the country’s youth into the sector but the interest and desire.
Mr. Djimatey expressed concern about the failure of the youth to venture into agriculture, a situation he attributed to the unattractive sector of the sector.
“The youth don’t see the sector as attractive enough to venture into and not because there are no mentors,” he said.
He said Blue Skies was already engaging students in agriculture to serve as a motivation to lure them into the sector after school. He explained that the company visited schools with some farmers to exhibit the several potentials available in the sector.
“Since Blue Skies Limited deals directly with farmers, we sometimes visited schools with some notable farmers in the country to demonstrate to students that farming is for anybody and not for the hopeless,” Mr. Djimatey said.
He blamed government for the lack of interest in the sector, explaining that successive governments have not projected agriculture well unlike the previous years where agricultural science was studied as a core examinable subject in schools to build students’ knowledge on the basic requisite knowledge in farming.
Ghanaians need to celebrate our notable farmers in the country to encourage the youth to also venture into the sector, he added.
Mr. Alistair Djimatey reiterated earlier calls for the reintroduction of agricultural science as a core examinable subject for Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools in the country which he was confident is the way forward to introduce youths into agriculture.
The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has introduced the Youth in Agriculture Programme (YIAP) with the objective of motivating the youth to accept and appreciate farming and food production as a commercial venture and thereby taking up farming as a lifetime vocation.
Source: Joyce Bedeley/ritefmonline.org/jbedeley9357@gmail.com
