By J. K. Nabary
Awutu Odotom (C/R), Dec 6, GNA – Mr Benjamin Kofi Baafi, the Country Director, Africa Centre for Education and Community Development (ACECD), has called on the youth to venture into agriculture as it is highly profitable and can fast-track society’s transformation.
He said farming could empower the people to be self-sufficient and help curtail rural-urban migration, especially by the youth, for greener pastures.
Mr Baafi, a Legal Practitioner, made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after a durbar at the Awutu-Senya District Assembly to honour best farmers in the area.
ACECD supported the Assembly with items for the best Youth Poultry and Youth Pig farmers in the district.
The event was on the theme: “Accelerating Agriculture Development through Value Addition.”
Mr Baafi said the support was to boost the interest of the youth to go into farming and assured them of the huge benefits they could accrue.
ACECD is an incorporated organisation registered as a limited guarantee company, which had been in Ghana since 2010.
It is also a non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of education and social development in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mr Baafi said it focused mainly on holistic education, infrastructural and sustainable development as well as accountability, transparency, collaboration, selflessness and charitable work.
Over the years ACECD had supported communities with school buildings, school uniforms, teaching and learning materials, teacher empowerment programmes and scholarship to brilliant but needy students.
“In the Central Region, we are focusing on community empowerment, particularly on the youth, hence the construction of a Youth Training Centre at Awutu Kwame Etey, to train young men and women to go into agro-business with modern practices,” he said.
Mr John Ocran, the Chief Executive Officer of Westfield Farms at Awutu Aberful, who was the Overall Best Youth Poultry Farmer, commended the organisation for the continuous support to farmers.
He said going into poultry, he did not need a big land because the birds were in cages, adding that he used 1/5 of an acre of land with only two permanent workers and now had 2,600 birds.
Mr Ocran said he was passionate about agriculture, being a viable investment, which had given him good returns than his former job.
He appealed to the youth not to see farming as a job for the aged or school dropouts but a business that could change their lives when well executed.
GNA