Focus on agricultural training and not only STEM education - Government told

Associate Professor of Soil Fertility at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Prof. Kwame Agyei Frimpong, has said the agricultural industry requires as much attention as other sectors.

He urged the government to apply the maximum attention it gives to STEM, for instance, to agriculture pointing out that there are more prospects in the agricultural sector than in other professions.

“We have classmates who are lawyers, medical doctors, you name them, but we’re not poorer than they are. We can do maybe better than they do. I can tell you that for those of you who are students, there are perhaps even more opportunities in agriculture than there are in other professions,” he advised.

Professor Frimpong was speaking at the 'The Swedru Conversations’ under the theme ‘Feeding Ourselves as a Nation,’ where he also lamented the lack of funding for the agriculture industry.

The event is an annual thought leadership program organized by the Alumni Association of the Swedru Senior High School, which took place on Monday, February 12, 2024, at the Alisa Hotel in Accra.

Addressing participants at the event, Prof Frimpong emphasised the need to "rebrand agriculture" and the importance of viewing it as a "sustainable and profitable profession".

"We should look at agriculture from the value chain perspective. In Ghana, we have a season of glut and seasons of scarcity. We need to develop infrastructure for distribution and storage.

Some people have the money, imagine if this event was a beauty pageant, a musical concert, or some sports event, you cannot imagine what the attendance would have been," he said in a report by Citi News.

NOQ

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