MINISTRY REVISES FOOD, AGRIC POLICY (PAGE 47)

Story: Akwasi Ampratwum-Mensah, Wenchi

The Faculty of Agriculture of the Methodist University College based at Wenchi in the Brong Ahafo Region has held its 1st congregation and 2nd matriculation at a ceremony at the Wenchi campus of the university.
Addressing the ceremony, the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Mr Ernest Akubour Debrah, observed that despite the importance of agriculture in Ghana, tertiary agricultural education has not been “spared the erosion caused by decades of under investment, loss of staff incentive, and failure to recruit replacements for an ageing cadre of professors”.
According to the sector minister, the critical question was how to reinvigorate tertiary agricultural education so that Ghana and Africa would be capable of sustained innovation in agriculture and natural resource management.
 Twenty-seven students were matriculated to pursue programmes in BSc General Agriculture, Agro-Processing, Agri Business and Horticulture while a total of 13 students received certificates in their various disciplines.
 Mr Debrah stressed that if agriculture was to be the engine of development in Africa as envisaged by the African Union, agricultural graduates should be the drivers of development, whether they go into industry or politics, or pursue higher degrees for research and teaching careers.
  Mr Debrah also emphasised that agriculture graduates would have to understand the consequences of rapid technological change in the contexts of globalisation and the risks and uncertainties associated with demographic structures and climate.
The minister said since the Wenchi campus of the university was “hands-on”, MoFA would liaise with MUCG to train the youth in the rudiments of agriculture.
 Mr Debrah noted with satisfaction that the MUCG was pursuing programmes that fell within the educational policies of the government, adding that the MUCG was currently collaborating with MoFA on the Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme (RTIMP), in the multiplication of improved cassava planting materials.
 Very Reverend Professor Samuel K. Adjepong, the Principal of MUCG, explained that the Faculty of Agriculture at Wenchi was to prepare students to engage in farming as a business and prepare them to manage agricultural enterprises and related industries.
The university is also striving to develop the students ability to think critically and develop the highest ethical and human values and excellent aesthetic taste, as well as provide them with the best academic, professional and practical training, including the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation, he added.
He disclosed that with funding from the Export Development Investment Fund, an old structure at the campus had been renovated for use as a seed store and that a three-room structure had also been rehabilitated for use as a laboratory for Physics, Chemistry and Nutrition.
The Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, Most Rev. Dr Robert Aboagye-Mensah, who is also chairman of the MUCG Council, observed with satisfaction that the MUCG staff and students had started taking positive steps to impact on rural development.
The Managing Director of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), Mr Yaw Opoku Atuahene, explained that it was the objective of the bank to finance and modernise agriculture and so it had a vested interest in the faculty at Wenchi.
 He, therefore, gave the assurance that the bank would provide an effective co-operation and collaboration with the university by sending resource persons to teach some selected subjects, adding that students at the faculty were encouraged to apply to do their attachment at the ADB.
The Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Abraham Kwadwo Kwakye, urged the administrators of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) to provide more funding to the universities to enable them to carry out more research work.