The National Youth Authority (NYA) is taking deliberate steps to create more employment avenues for the youth in the agricultural sector as they believe “the agricultural sector has been untapped and holds promise.”
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Pius Enam Hadzide indicated that research from the World Bank and other bodies show Ghana has a huge advantage and potential in its agricultural sector.
“We have to be deliberate in creating jobs for the youth and making them economically sound. As the NYA, we are focused on primarily agriculture, tourism and sports as avenues for job creation. Immense opportunities lie in these areas and research also says we have a huge advantage in the area of agriculture in Ghana,” he said.
Highlighting some deliberate efforts put in place by the NYA to promote agriculture amongst the youth, he mentioned his outfit has acquired some dispute free land banks in the various regions. “The idea is that we will help the youth get some parcels of land nationwide and support them in farming.
Again, there is a comprehensive approach to add more to the agricultural value chain. We are also building warehouses for food storage and preservation.”
With the newly introduced commodity exchange programme, farmers now do not have to take their produce to the market for sale. The commodity exchange programme takes the farm produce directly from farmers and get them buyers.
“Agriculture is becoming a respectable profession again and most of the world’s richest people are farmers. Just imagine the revenue the youth will make from locally producing all the rice we import. We can make millionaires out of farming,” he told Sefah-Danquah on the Happy Morning show.
Pius Enam Hadzide encouraged the youth to venture into farming as the capital required to start up is quite low as compared to other ventures.
