President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Thursday, August 13, 2020, commissioned the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme’s (NEIP) Greenhouse Estate Project and the Entrepreneurship Innovation Centre at Dawhenya in the Greater Accra Region.
The Greenhouses project, located at the Dawhenya Irrigation site, is part of the government’s effort to modernise agriculture and make it attractive to the youth and the university graduates in the country.
Currently, the government, through the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Program (NEIP) Under the auspices of the Ministry of Business Development have installed 75 greenhouse domes at the Dawhenya irrigation site.
It plans to build 1000 greenhouse domes across the 10 regions of Ghana, which are expected to provide 10,000 direct jobs annually, through the project, with annual revenue of GHȻ150,080,000.
At the commissioning ceremony, President Akufo-Addo said, the 75 greenhouses can produce 4,500 tonnes of tomatoes annually, bringing a yearly revenue of GHȻ11 million, and employ a total of 230 people.
The greenhouse project, which will have experts from Israel come down to train the farmers, will also transfer skills and new technology in fruit and vegetable production, and improve the standard in farming and marketing of fruits and vegetables in the country.
President Akufo-Addo expressed delight about the project as it underpins the critical importance of agriculture in the country’s economy.
The President said, 50 percent of the country’s population is engaged in agriculture, which over the years, had been characterised by “largely old fashioned production methods and low-income levels for farmers and fisherfolks.”
That, he said, had made the sector unattractive to the youth as a “viable means of livelihood.”
“We are told by the data that some 250, 000 young men and women graduates from our tertiary educational institutions annually, with only two percent being absorbed into the formal sector, while the remaining 98 percent, seek employment in the informal sector or remained unemployed.”
A partial response to this, the President indicated, had been the establishment of the Nation’s Builders Corps (NABCO) which has provided jobs for 100,000 unemployed graduates.
“We are on course to remedy the situation more permanently in creating greater opportunities for the youth by building a strong and resilient economy with the focus on diversifying Ghanaian agriculture, adopting value-addition activities and promoting industrialisation with digital services which are the driving force for innovation, higher productivity levels and job creation,” he disclosed.
The World Bank estimates that agriculture and agribusiness together, could command US$1 trillion presence in Africa’s continental economy by the year 2030, compared to US$313 billion in 2010, if more irrigation, smart business and trade policies, and a dynamic private agribusiness sector are harnessed to work side by side with Government, and link farmers to consumers, in an increasingly urbanised Africa.
“That is why today’s event” President Akufo-Addo indicated, “is of such significance as we embark on a journey to modernised agriculture through greenhouse technology” which is a major anchor of government’s Planting for food and jobs program.
“This means that at this facility the reliance on favourable weather conditions in a particular season for vegetable farming will now be a thing of the past.”
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD
