By Hilda Osei Kuffour, GNA
Kumasi Nov. 17, GNA – St. Johns Grammar Senior High School from the Greater Accra region, has emerged the overall best SHS in the 2025 Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) School Farm Competition.
The ‘Nana Joe Mensah Award,’ is the flagship award in the KIC School farm competition, which is school-based agricultural challenge originated by Blue Skies Foundation, as part of efforts to change the perception of students in agriculture in the country’s schools by providing hands-on learning experiences.
In partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the initiative supports participating schools with inputs including seeds and basic farm tools to promote practical agricultural education.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), on the sidelines of the awards, Ms Francisca Atubiga, head of the Agricultural Department at St. Johns Grammar, said her school cultivated tomatoes on a 2,500 square meter of land for the competition.
“More than 100 students in the department developed interest in the project and gained valuable insights into agriculture, even though majority had little to no prior knowledge of it before,” she added.
She explained that despite challenges such as low rainfall and limited students’ participation in fieldwork, the school got a strong support from the KIC team and the school’s headmaster, which served as a key factor in their success.
Ms Atubiga said the school was looking ahead to install a drip irrigation system to address climate variability and train a lot of students to gain more knowledge in agriculture through discipline and hard work.
Master David Gbadago, a student leader of the project, said they mostly went to the field on Saturdays and Sundays to water the seeds and observed how the seedlings were germinating and did the necessary farm practices.
He revealed that the school had started producing a tomato puree, branded as “St. John’s Grammar organic tomato paste,” made from undersized tomatoes, which was not presentable to its buyers using facilities from the Home Economics department.
He described the KIC project as a form of exposure, saying, “it has brought more practical lessons than theory and has helped us gain much experience in the agricultural field and the needed skills for development.”
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Linda Asante Agyei