Serendipalm Company Limited, an organic crude palm oil miller and cocoa beans producing company in Akyem Asuom, has procured six brush cutters for the farmer associations the company works with. The various communities are Akyem Asuom, Bomso, Ntronang, Abaam, Abodom and Pramkese. This comes in an effort to help reduce the drudgery in controlling farm weeds by the farmer associations in their oil palm and cocoa plantations.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Women in the Driving Seat
Training women in tractor Operation, Maintenance and Management
Background
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), through the Agricultural Engineering Services Directorate (AESD) and in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, is organising five (5) weeks training course for prospective female tractor operators, female farm managers, female tractor owners and female farmers at the Agricultural Mechanisation Training Centre at Wenchi Farm Institute. The training is expected to start from 6th April-10th May, 2019.
The training forms part of the African Union Development Agency’s (AUDA-NEPAD) Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training for Women (ATVET Women) project. GIZ supports the implementation of ATVET for Women in Ghana and 11 other partner countries to strengthen the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
Training overview
The ‘Women in the Driving Seat’ training programme seeks to develop women’s skills in managing agricultural machinery and equipment for enhanced agricultural productivity in Ghana. The overall objective is to increase women’s employability and earning potential, particularly in the field of mechanised agriculture
The course targets prospective female agricultural machinery operators and female farmers. Trainees will acquire the requisite knowledge and practical skills to operate, manage and maintain tractors and related equipment. The training centres with support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Government of Ghana and GIZ, have been stocked with a range of agricultural machinery as training materials.
Trainees will be required to undergo a three-month industrial internship with various commercial farms and other industry players specifically in the field of agricultural mechanisation to enable them have enough practical field experience.
Training shall include the following:
UNIT NUMBER UNIT TITLE
1.0. Introduction to farm tractors, the operating systems and the components
2.0. Environmental health and safety management in tractor operations
3.0. Understanding tractor controls, instruments and driving
4.0. Agricultural machineries and tractor operations
5.0. Maintenance and storage of farm tractors and implements
6.0. Tractor operation business and management
Selection Criteria
• Women between the ages of 18 – 40 years
• Access to tractor
• Basic literacy and numeracy skills
Interested prospective female tractor operators and farmers are requested to apply by writing through the Regional and District/Municipal Agric. Departments to The Director, Agricultural Engineering Services Directorate, MoFA, Accra or to submit their details to the Headmaster, Wenchi Farm Institute in the Bono East Region.
Successful applicants will be required to report to the training centre on Saturday 6th April, 2019 at Wenchi Farm Institute.
Deadline for submission of application is 20th March, 2019.
FOR ENQUIRIES, you may contact EUGENE M. ABIO (AESD) on 0208953510 or eugeneabio@hotmail.com and MICHAEL BOATENG (GIZ CAADP ATVET Women Project) on 0244830565.
CHIEF DIRECTOR
MOFA
Graduates from the various Agricultural Colleges in the country have expressed their displeasure over the government’s failure to honour their contract to engage them under the Youth Employment Agency Agriculture Module.
In a press release, the graduates recounted the promises the government made to them, which promise will allow the graduates to serve as Agriculture Extension Agents to augment the services of agriculture extension for farmers in the commencement of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
The graduates debunked the claim by government that it has employed 1700 graduates in February, 2017 as agriculture extension agents. According to the aggrieved graduates, only 570 graduates are currently in the service, and not 1700 as announced by government.
An unemployed graduate who spoke to Agric Today vented out his frustration about the development. According to him, even those that have been issued appointment letters are not part of the already agric extension agents under the Youth Employment Agency.
They are calling on the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and the government in general to remember the agreement they reached before the commencement of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme and recruite them with urgency.
Press release……
20/02/2019
Breach of contract
The entire membership of the agric extension agents under Youth In Agric Extension module of the YEA from all the Agric colleges in the country, wishes to register and announce our displeasure to the general public and the minister of agric, the unfulfillment of the agreement and the promise given us before the commencement of the government’s flagship program PLANTING FOR FOOD AND JOBS.
Even though we the agric graduates were the first to work under the Youth Employment Agency as graduates, we accepted the offer based on the agreement between us and the Hon. minister of agric. These agreements were;
1. After the exit from the IMF program and clearance given, we would be the first to be given appointment into the service.
2. We shall be given all the benefits given to our senior officers such as provision of protective clothing, TnT, wellington boots.
1700 agric graduates have accepted to work for the nation based on the above agreements for two years, out of which only 570 were at post till date.1130 decline the offer due to unfavorable working conditions we face on daily basis. We buy our own wellington boots, commute ourselves to the field on daily basis without our TnT, non-regular and refusal of payments of our monthly stipend of ghc 350.00, which has caused some of our members to be highly indebted to their landlords and other service providers of their homes, and non-provision of our protective clothing.
Our lips were full of joy when we were called for interview in November, 2018 at the institute of local government, for the recruitment exercise, which we all honored with joy.
We are left into suspense, dismay and dilemma when in the beginning of February till date, our colleagues who openly and vehemently rejected the Planting For Food and Jobs because of the unattractiveness of the conditions of services and the meager monthly allowance involved (GHC 350.00) were now called for appointment letters, just in the name of protocols, leaving those of us who are already on the field working and having the requisite working experiences.
We see this behavior as inhuman and a complete cheat to we those who sacrificed our life, time, energy and resources for the nation and therefore calling the appropriate stakeholders and the minister of Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto as a matter of urgency remember his promises to us and come to our aid.
SIGNED…..
(Concerned Members)
Cc: All media houses
Minister of Agriculture
All stakeholders
Reporter: Abass Iddrisu – AgricToday News.
Cocoa is one of the raw materials that give high foreign exchange to the government of Ghana. Ghana’s cocoa is one of the best in the world. Due to the high foreign exchange accrued by the government from Cocoa, government of Ghana normally support the cocoa farmers by providing them with fertilizers, cocoa seedlings and other materials needed to boost cocoa production. The story is however different in Asikesu Odumase, Aburi and Asikesu.
In a quest to promote the involvement of the youths in the agricultural value chain to curb unemployment and to support and promote Ghana Beyond Aid, the Ghana Agribusiness Centre (GABC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and Business Development and Association of Ghana is to organize a monthly seminar under the theme ‘Demystifying the Building Blocks of Agribusiness, A Real Definition for Ghana Beyond Aid’.
Young farmers believe that the incubation hub would decrease post-harvest losses by bringing innovation for food security and adding value to traditional crops to turn them into cash crops.
Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) has urged rice farmers to adopt long grain rice due to its high demand and the high price it fetches. This was said on Tuesday by RAB General Director Patrick Karangwa while addressing an issue raised by farmers that they do not have market for their harvest, especially in Nyagatare.
Hortifresh, a programme supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands has, as part of its mission to establish a sustainable and internationally competitive fruit and vegetable sector that contributes to inclusive food and nutrition security, launched “the Exporter-Outgrower financial product to boost horticultural production and export in Ghana”.
A fifty-two year old farmer has met his untimely death in Atobriso No. 2, a farming community in the Kwaebibirem municipality of the Eastern region while preparing a piece of land for okro production.
In the past, during the dry season, small-scale farmers who depended on rainfall for farming almost become inactive and always waited for the rainy season to farm and till their lands.
