School children to plant vegetables in containers

Ghana, a Non-Governmental organisation that focuses on youth leadership training has launched a National Alternative Gardening Project (NAGP) to train children to grow vegetables in containers.

Launching the project at Koforidua in the Eastern Region, the Executive Director of 4H-Ghana, Mr Appiah Kweku Boateng explained that the school gardening programme initiated by his organisation to help school children in the country to develop interest in agriculture could not be implemented in many schools in the urban areas due to scarcity of land.

He said as a result, the organisation decided to promote the NAGP to help train the future farmers of the country in modern agricultural practices.

Mr Boateng said under the NAGP, the children could cultivate the vegetables wherever they could get sunlight and water for the plan in containers.

Mr Boateng said under the NAGP children could produce vegetables for their homes to help solve the nutrition deficiencies in the family diet.

He said where the gardens are well managed, the children could produce extra vegetables for sale to help generate extra incomes for the family while the children learnt how to cultivate plants using modern farming techniques by practice.

Mr Boateng said the project could also help to reduce poverty in families where the harvest was large and could be sold.

Mr Boateng said his organisation was ready to collaborate with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to expand the project to all schools in the country.

He invited corporate institutions to support his organisation.

Speaking at the function, Ms Dorin Issaka, Eastern Regional Coordinator of Technical, Vocational Education and Training(TVET) said government initiated moves to introduce the youth to agriculture under the Agriculture, Technical Vocational and Education Training(ATVET) in ten basic schools in ten districts in the Eastern Region.

The project is expected to motivate the youth to choose agriculture and technical education as they move on to the secondary level.

She said the government has also selected ten Senior High Schools (SHSs) and equipped them to specialize in ATVET.