Pulse Picks: Popular Ghanaians who ventured into agriculture to make it attractive

Agriculture is one of the sectors that are not attractive to the youth due to its labour and capital intensiveness, coupled with the perception that it’s not commensurately lucrative.

But over the past few years, some people have managed to change the negative narrative about the Agric sector and made more young people develop an interest in it. The only bottleneck to the desire of most young people to venture into agriculture is the lack of startup capital, land and knowledge.

John Dumelo:

Actor and politician, John Dumelo comes to mind when it comes to promoting Agriculture as a sector that has the potential to turn around Ghana’s economy by reducing importation while feeding the population.

He has been very passionate about advocating for value addition to agricultural produce to create more employment for the teaming young population and also to help strengthen Ghana’s economy.

Dumelo has made a lot of fortune from his agriculture activities over the past few years per his own social media posts in which he proudly displayed his agricultural produce including yam, ginger, cabbage, maize, rice and many other crops, some of which he added value to.

He mostly does the farming in the volta and Northern regions of Ghana and then transports the produce to Accra to be distributed to the various markets for sale. He also uses social media to market the produce.

In November, he launched what he referred to as “Operation Feed Ourselves”, an initiative he believes will help cut down on the importation of goods into Ghana by 50% in the next 6 years.

According to him, the main focus of the initiative is to produce more foodstuff especially rice, tomatoes, onions and maize from the Guan district and Northern parts of Ghana to feed the rest of the country.

Dumelo is a popular actor known in Ghana and beyond, coupled with his heavy social media presence. He leverages his popularity to promote agriculture, making his numerous followers develop an interest in the sector.

Kojo Akoto Boateng:

Another popular young man who has ventured into agriculture and always urges the youth to follow suit is Kojo Akoto Boateng.

He was the former head of New Media at Citi FM and Citi TV, led the Research function at the station and also was a panellist/analyst on the Citi Breakfast Show.

While at the Adabraka-based media firm, he was into agriculture and agribusiness alongside the media work before he finally resigned from the station a few months ago ostensibly to focus more attention on his agriculture activities.

Being a tech and social media-savvy man, he utilizes the digital space to promote agriculture and agribusiness and urges the youth to venture into it rather than moving from one company to the other, incessantly distributing job application letters to seek non-existent employment opportunities.

Because of his love for agriculture, he uses every platform at his disposal to promote others who are engaging in it.

Kojo is noted for farming maize, soya beans, rice, and fish among many other things.

Senyo Hosi:

Senyo Hosi, the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors gained popularity over the years due to his exploits in the energy sector, his philanthropy and his championing of certain national causes, among other things.

He, however, resigned in July this year as the CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors and is now doing a lot in the agricultural sector.

The investor and Economic Policy Analyst is currently the Chief Executive Officer of HGL Limited, an industrial rice plantation, and milling facility at Adaklu in the Volta Region.

He is noted to be involved in large-scale rice production and value addition to the produce to feed the nation.

Aside from various means of marketing his products, he utilizes his massively followed social media pages to create awareness about them, especially his GOGO Jasmine rice.

He is so passionate about agriculture that he sometimes clashed with the sector minister over its ineffectiveness, calling for his resignation or sacking.

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