Ho, May 6, GNA - The Youth in Agriculture project stands a greater chance of success under the Ministry of Youth and Sports with the National Youth Council (NYC) playing a major role in its implementation. Mr Ransford Ocloo, Volta Regional Co-ordinator of the NYC, made the assertion at a sensitization forum on the project organized by the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition (GTLC) in Ho, on Tuesday. He observed that previous potentially productive youth focused programmes failed to benefit the majority of the youth because they ignored the NYC and established their own implementing bodies that had their own orientations. Mr Ocloo urged the youth in the region to be proactive in order to benefit from the programme.

He suggested to the youth in the region to pursue less capital intensive agriculture activities such as mushroom farming, snail rearing and bee-keeping and others like them. Mr Ocloo explained that such agricultural activities, apart from the little capital required to get them started, had shorter gestation periods with high income-generating potentials. He urged the youth to take to agriculture as their first choice because the sector held great promise for their future and that of the country. The Reverend Alexander Avor, Volta Region Focal Person of the GTLC, said the forum sought to encourage the youth and women "to see agro-business as a lucrative business," rather than "as a business for the drop outs from schools".

He said it was also to give the opportunity to the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Regional Minister to brief the various farming groups from the 18 districts of the region on how the region would fare under the Youth in Agriculture Project. In its 2009 budget, the government proposed a Youth in Agriculture Project whose highlights include training 1200 youth in agri-business, supporting 7,000 youths with inputs to cultivate 5600 hectares of maize, rice or sorghum in 70 districts in the country. About 4,000 youths would also be supported with modern inputs and irrigation facilities to undertake dry-season farming. Suitable lands were to be identified and negotiated with chiefs and land owners for the programme including the development of an implementing manual for junior field and life schools.