Agric Minister urges SHS authorities to establish school farms to supplement food supplies

All secondary schools in the country have been tasked to have farms to produce essential crops for feeding.

The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, made the call during a media engagement on February 14.

He noted that letters have already been issued to all the secondary schools in the country through the regional directors of the Ministry. The call follows concerns of food shortages at some senior high schools across the country following the implementation of the Free Senior High School policy.

The sector minister is of the view that all schools, churches and traditional authorities and district assemblies have enough land to plant food to support the feed Ghana program.

“We’ve also issued letters to all the secondary schools in this country. The letters have gone to our regional directors, and we are also engaging with all the regional ministers. We want every secondary school in Ghana to have a farm. Because we cannot understand why we have the rich soil around us. But you hear students and schools crying for food, they are waiting for Accra to procure rice, maize, yam, plantain and send it to them wherever they are, while we can get food for our school children,” he bemoaned.

Mr Opoku added, “Meanwhile, around the school, we can have a small farm from which we can produce some of these things. And so, we are urging all the secondary schools to also go into farming. And then we are also saying that all the churches here, if the people don’t have food to eat, how can they come to church and listen to the Word of God? So we are urging the churches to also go into farming. Some of the churches are already into farming. Others can also join.

According to him, “We have what it is to produce food to feed our country and the rest of West Africa. We can do it.”

The Agric Minister revealed that multiple strategies are being adopted to ensure the country is food sufficient under the feed Ghana program.

‘‘In fact, this is not the only thing we are doing. We are rolling out a multiple of strategies to achieve our target. Food sufficiency under the feed Ghana program. Feed Ghana means we want to feed the people of Ghana as well as industries in Ghana. And so under the feed Ghana, we have feed the people and feed the industry. Under the feed the People program, we are saying that we are going to encourage every Ghanaian, including you journalists, that wherever you live, you must have a home garden,” the Minister explained.

He further explained that, “… you can plant some pepper, some tomato, some garden eggs to reduce the cost of feeding in this country. So, we are going to launch that big campaign, and we expect you to support us in that course, to get every Ghanaian to take advantage of the rich soil that you have to find something in the house. People call it backyard. Probably is at the back of the house, but we are saying that it can be anywhere in the house, so let’s call it home garden.”

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