Tamale Girls Senior High School (SHS) in the northern region has been adjudged the overall best in the 2024 School Farm Awards.
The school cultivated tomatoes on a 40 by 57 acres of land and successfully managed the farm to produce the desired quantities of tomatoes, which were used to feed the students.
For their prize, the school received five desktop computers, a trophy, certificate of participation, a medal, and a plaque.
Okanta Basic School in the Abuakwa South Municipality in the Eastern region, was adjudged the overall best school in the junior high school category and they received four desktop computers, a trophy, certificate, a medal, and a plaque.
The School Farm Awards, which is organised by the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) in partnership with the Master Card Foundation, seeks to celebrate the dedication and innovation of JHS and SHS students in the field of sustainable agriculture, nationwide.
The 2024 award was held under the theme “unveiling the next generation of agricultural leaders”.
Mr Kodwo Atopi Odum, Coordinator of the competition, speaking at the awards ceremony at the KNUST in Kumasi, said the 2024 competition attracted over 500 schools nationwide from the junior and senior high levels.
The schools, according to him, were given seven months to cultivate vegetables such as chilli peppers, tomatoes, cabbages, sweet peppers, carrots others, harvest, market and sell the fruits.
However, some schools withdrew from the competition due to various challenges leaving about 400 active participants in the race.
He outlined that the nursery stage, transplanting stage, tree harvest stage and the post-harvest stage were the four major stages of monitoring for scoring marks to the farms.
The farms of Tamale Girls SHS and Okanta JHS were found to be very innovative and successful, hence, they were selected as the best schools.
Mr Odum said other performing schools, teachers were also presented with tablets, laptops, desktop computers, certificates of participation, medals, trophies, plaques, knapsack sprayer, fertilizers, and cash prizes, under the over 15 categories of the awards scheme.
Nana Akyena Kwagyan Nuamah (V), Chief of Essuowin in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti Region, noted that with good climatic conditions, Ghana could be the most secured country in West Africa in terms of food production.
However, due to various reasons the country was not able to produce to feed all its citizens.
This had led to high import of food from other countries.
Nana Nuamah encouraged the students to take up agriculture not only as a career, but a sector which was efficient and profitable to create jobs and employment opportunities that would help promote the economic development of the country.
Professor James Osei Mensah, Vice President of the Ghana Society of Agribusiness Scientists (GSAS), said Ghana together with many African countries’ development would be redundant if agriculture was not given the needed attention.
To achieve greater economic development through agriculture, Prof. Mensah noted that, the country must invest in changing the mind-sets of citizens, especially the youth about agriculture.
Therefore, the School Farm Competition originated by Blue Skies Foundation and taken over by the KIC in 2022, was a platform to reform the minds of students on agriculture as a viable economic alternative and not a punishment.