Greenhouse farming technology introduced at Vakpo

The centre has a ‘pack house’ for the packaging and storing of vegetables and fruits for export and six houses of a technology known as the “greenhouse technology” for the cultivation of crops. 

The new technology is designed to attract the youth into agriculture and to make it more lucrative  to solve the high rate of unemployment in the country.

The centre of excellence was established by the Export, Marketing and Quality Awareness Project (EMQAP) under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and managed by a private agribusiness services and innovative services firm, Agri Impact Consult. 

Youth in agriculture

Briefing the Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, during a visit to the centre, the regional director of MoFA, Mr Kofi Larbi, said a youth employment drive would soon be launched to motivate graduate youth to enter agriculture as a livelihood.

He said there was an inexhaustible demand for vegetables on the export market but this opportunity was still unknown to the youth hence the slow response to the active involvement of the youth in agriculture in the wake of rising unemployment rate in the country.

The agri-business project development manager of Agri Impact, Mr Joseph Agyiri, said machines had been installed at the ‘pack house’ to facilitate packing and storage of mangoes and pineapples for export.

In a comment, the Volta Regional Minister said all municipal and district chief executives would be impressed upon to take advantage of the new technology in view of its potential to reduce the high unemployment rate as well as to enhance income earning in the area.  

Volta Region Agricultural Development Project

Earlier, Mr Afotey-Agbo and his deputy, Mr Francis Ganyaglo and district chief executives for South Dayi and Afadjato-South districts, Mr Semenu Bekui and Madam Angela Alorwu-Tay  visited the defunct Volta Region Agricultural Development Project(VORADEP) at Kpeve.

The regional director, Mr Larbi, told the team that the research centre was reputed to have supplied the poultry needs of  the whole Volta Region and beyond under the project.

However, he said, funding to proceed with the project ceased with the withdrawal of funding from the World Bank.

Efforts are being made, he said, to source funding from a West African agricultural project  to revamp the centre.

According to him all the four pens available for poultry will be rehabilitated soon to house 4000 birds. 

He said mango, papaya, pineapple would also be cultivated as income generating crops at the centre in addition to the cultivation of cassava, cocoyam, sweet potato, yam and plantain as food security crops.

Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, said the visit was to assess the situation on the ground to attract investment  to the centre which  had been underutilised for a long time.