Africa-Press – Ghana. Mr Eric Opoku, Minister of Food and Agriculture, has warned that youth unemployment poses a “serious danger” to the nation’s future.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day Food, Agriculture, Technology and Sustainability Conference at the Ho Technical University on the theme: “Rethinking the Future of Food and its Allied Systems in an Era of Sustainability and Circularity,” the Minister emphasised the urgent need to address the issue.
“We have a serious challenge on our hand and the challenge portends a calamitous future for this nation if not addressed urgently. The challenge is about youth unemployment. We are told by the World Bank that every year, Ghana produces over 500,000 young people who enter the job market in search of non-existent jobs.
“Again, at the continental level, every year, Africa produces over 12 million new entrants into the job market and existing opportunities are able to employ just three million of them. And so in effect, every year, Africa produces nine million unemployed graduates, people who are educated, able-bodied, well determined, desirous to work but they cannot find work to do. This is a serious danger ahead of us.”
Mr Opoku pointed out Africa’s untapped agricultural potential, producing less than 10 percent of its agricultural resources, despite having about 60 percent of the world’s agricultural resources, “a clear indication that we have a huge potential to use agriculture to create jobs for the teeming youth of our nations.”
The Minister said the reduction in food inflation in just few months of the new government was a testament to President John Mahama’s commitment to using agriculture to deliver prosperity and growth to the people, insisting that “agriculture is the highest on the priority list.”
Mr Opoku cited the government’s flagship Feed Ghana initiative, which he said was designed to ensure that Ghana was able to produce food sufficiently to feed her citizens and to ensure that agriculture was repositioned to be able to ensure incessant supply of raw materials for agro-industrial operations.
“It is a clear indication that we have not limited agriculture to production and that we are now focused on the entire value chain. We believe that if we are able to establish that strong relationship between agriculture and industry, we’ll create jobs, reduce the food import bill and then Ghana’s agriculture will become competitive globally.”
He stressed the inseparability of agriculture and science, hence the government’s establishment of a research fund to support technical research, outlining critical interventions and collaborations to improve soil management, including strengthening institutions for soil testing and rehabilitating soil with modern equipment and, procurement of modern equipment for fertilizer and seed testing, aiming for seed independence and local capacity building.
Mr Opoku highlighted the significance of transitioning from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation agriculture to ensure an all-year-round production, announcing that an entire 47 million euros provided by the European Union was going into irrigation while also noting government allocation of over GHC800 million for fixing farming roads to improve food transportation and reduce food inflation.
He called for a change in mindset towards farming, encouraging young people to see agriculture as a lucrative career and a source of livelihood while emphasising the shared responsibility in developing the nation, with the government providing a vision and strategies, and the people supporting these efforts.
The maiden conference presented an opportunity for researchers, academics, policy makers and industry professionals from Ghana and beyond to share insights and experiences as well as engage in meaningful dialogue about the pressing challenges faced in food systems and the agriculture value chain.
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