KNUST, FINATRADE PARTNERSHIP COMMENDABLE

OVER the years, questions have been raised concerning the relevance and continued study of Agriculture as a subject in our educational institutions because of the negligible impact its study has had on overall agricultural development.
Some of the arguments have been that apart from a few graduates who find themselves in the agricultural sector, the bulk of them end up venturing into other sectors of the economy not quite related to what they studied.
This state of affairs has had a rueful effect on the agricultural sector, particularly crop farming and, to some extent, livestock production, just because agriculture has been degraded in its entirety and nature.
The sector has often been addressed as a suitable place for the uneducated or school dropouts, such that students who graduate from our educational institutions, especially the tertiary ones, are not motivated enough to take to agriculture.
Another factor which explains this poor state of affairs is the non-availability of adequate extension officers to go round the communities to supervise the activities of those in the agricultural sector, particularly our farmers.
For this reason, we see as a refreshing development the initiative taken by the Faculty of Agriculture of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to collaborate with the Finatrade Foundation to boost the training of graduates of Agriculture and motivate them to venture into agriculture after school.
Under the initiative, a model farm project has been established at KNUST with a seed capital of GH¢50,000. This project must be applauded and given the maximum support to sustain and enhance the human resource base of the agricultural sector.
It is our hope that this initiative will not be terminal but that it should envisage resourcing the graduates who may want to venture into self employment or the informal sector and support them with working capital and the needed tools.
Furthermore, the authorities at KNUST must explore other avenues of raising income to promote increased agricultural production.
Meanwhile, it is our conviction that this laudable programme should be extended to other people such as farmers and organisations which have taken to agriculture.
The DAILY GRAPHIC calls on the Finatrade Foundation to help sustain the interest of our youth in agriculture.
Through this effort, the morale of the graduates would be boosted to help elevate agriculture to a level that will make it gain popular acceptance as the subject of choice and subsequently as the best vocation.
It is sad that most often the findings of research carried out by our universities and research institutions have been left on the shelves to gather dust just because captains of business and industry do not find those findings attractive to put their resources in them.
The tide must change because our desire to reach a middle-income status will elude us if we continue to down play very critical areas of national development such as the agricultural sector, which has been the backbone of our economy all these years.