All is set for the first ever Agriculture E-Summit to be hosted in the Upper West Region.
The E-Summit to be hosted on social media apps like Zoom and Facebook is expected to whip up the interest of young people towards venturing into agriculture.
Speaking to Radio Ghana at Wa, the Upper West Regional Director of the Youth Secretariat, Archibald Donkor, said this would be done by engaging experts in the field of agriculture to share their experiences and offer valid business opportunities in the sector for interested persons.
The E-Summit would be hosted by the Youth Authority with support from Yison Tech Hub— a local technological and incubation hub at Wa.
Agriculture is said to contribute more than half of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for over 40 percent of all exports. This notwithstanding, the agricultural sector is fraught with many challenges key among which is the aging population of farmers.
The Upper West Regional Director of the Youth Secretariat, Archibald Donkor, expressed the view that the only way to get the youth interested in agriculture is to have experts mentor them while providing them with practical ways of surmounting of the challenges along the agriculture and agribusiness value chain to provide alternative sources of income.
“We intend to organise this e-summit on agribusiness because the Upper West Region’s key economic driver is agriculture. The key people are supposed to be the young people; but the questions are, are they really interested in agriculture? Are they ready to take up opportunities along the agribusiness value chain?” he quizzed.
Mr Donkor emphasised that the e-summit “will bring together experts in the agribusiness sector to educate the young people on the opportunities available in the sector especially in the Upper West Region and how they prepare themselves for these opportunities”.
The Executive Director of Yison Tech Hub, Issahaque Serekpera Naa said Ghana needs to quickly adopt modern technologies in the agriculture sector. He said building and using mobile applications for complex activities like tracing agricultural produce will allow for consumers and exporters to easily trace the source of certain produce if there are defects or spoilage.
“Technology now is the way forward. It adds value to agriculture. There was a time they banned Ghana from exporting certain commodities and it affected all of us. But with technology, we would be able to trace farmers, which part of the community they’re coming from and who the farmers who are involved in such activities using the track system and artificial intelligence,” he explained.
The Agriculture E-Summit is expected to take place on May 30, 2020.
Story filed by Mark Smith.
