By Stanley Senya
Accra, Feb. 29, GNA – Agri-Impact Limited, an agribusiness development firm, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to advocate and enhance agricultural businesses among youth through technology.
The partnership will help create dignified and fulfilling jobs for 326,000 young women, young men focusing especially on women, and also to eradicate the false mindset about agriculture among students.
Mr Dan Acquaye, Chief Executive Officer of Agri-Impact Limited and Professor Ben Banful, Provost, College of Agric and Natural Resources, KNUST, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective institutions.
Mrs Julie Asante-Dartey, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Agri-Impact Limited, speaking to the media said the agreement would scale up youth involvement in agriculture, build their capacity and be ambassadors of agribusiness.
She said the partnership would also help leverage the electronic-learning platform of the University to train over 500 youth, who would use Information Technology and Communication (ICT) to create enterprises in the agribusiness industry.
Mrs Asante-Dartey said it was important for students to have the passion of creating businesses in agriculture to secure a lifetime job, adding that it would help reduce the high level of unemployment faced by the youth.
“The training is to help students become entrepreneurs and ambassadors of agriculture”, she said.
The Deputy CEO said, the project would be a four-year development in rice, soya, poultry and tomato production.
She said with the aid of the University, students would have an effective value chain to work together and increase productivity, smooth market access and enterprise efficiency.
She expressed the hope that after four years, the project would generate at least $200 million revenue every year to help cut down importation by 10 per cent.
She said the idea of partnering the University was to involve academia in the project to develop policies on agribusiness for effective implementation.
Professor Robert Aidoo, Dean, Agribusiness and Intergrated Supply Chain Management, KNUST, emphasised on the importance of collaboration between the two entities in meeting the demands of agribusiness development among Ghanaian youth, especially young men and women.
He said the University recognised the MoU as an important step to working together to bring agricultural businesses to the doorstep of Ghanaian youth by ensuring that stakeholders worked to achieve success in the agricultural sector.
GNA