The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has rolled out a comprehensive programme to assist senior high schools that are interested in farming.
“We want to give every senior high school in Ghana that is willing to do school farming the opportunity; the ministry now stands ready to support them, especially those in the southern and middle belt where the planting season is about starting.
“We are now willing to support them to engage in massive school farming.
With that, the school will now be able to feed on the grains, legumes and cereals that they have cropped, and thereby leaving what our general farmers have planted for the market for the rest of the population,” the sector Minister, Dr Bryan Acheampong, announced at a media briefing in Accra last Monday.
He was briefing the media on the official rollout of the implementation of the Phase Two of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ2.0) programme launched in August last year.
Dr Acheampong expressed the belief that such a move would reduce the pressure on food and stabilise food prices generally.
How to enrol
The minister said any school that was interested could go onto a mobile and web application platform, the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP), where there was an opportunity to enrol.
“It is the school that must fill the form, and in doing so, the head of the school must enter his or her full name and staff number, and the number and name must match with what is on file with the Accountant General’s Department,” Dr Acheampong explained.
He added that the heads of schools could appoint coordinators and submit such names on the form, “and immediately they submit the names, those documents go straight to the district agric office”.
The office would in turn, get in touch with the school to begin the process.
Dr Acheampong said the farming season was around the corner for the southern sector, “and the time to get into agriculture is now”.
Source: graphic.com.gh
