CIEDOM-HOG Ghana in collaboration with the University of Cape Coast’s School of Agriculture on Friday, April 27 launched the maiden edition of the ‘Ultimate Farmer Reality Challenge’ in Accra.

Speaking at the launch, the Institutional Coordinator for the Ultimate Reality Challenge, Samuel Ofori said the reality show aims at bridging the gap between academia and industry players.

“We identified a problem of disconnection between academia and industry, we have agricultural and related disciplines graduates who do not go into agribusiness and that is the major reason why we have under developed agriculture and unemployment in our country and Africa as a whole,” he said.

Mr. Ofori observed that, Ghana’s increasing unemployment rate poses security threat to the country and the seeming disinterest in agribusiness by graduates who majored in agriculture leaves them unabsorbed into the job market.

“There are negative and wrong perception about agriculture in this country, I have been to secondary schools where girls doing agriculture have been mocked to stop” he recalled.

He said, “People do not see the prospect in agribusiness and the problem of finance for start-ups, there is declining interest in agriculture. We did a survey and the findings indicated that there was some barriers that prevent young people to go into agribusiness, so what this reality challenge seek to do is to bridge the barriers.”

Lack of monetary and material resources, difficulty in land acquisition, discouragement from peers and family and low investor confidence in agriculture, he said, were some barriers that discourage the youth from venturing into agribusiness.

These hurdles forced the CIEDOM-HOG Ghana to introduce the ‘Ultimate Farmer Reality Challenge’ which has been themed, ‘Harnessing the potential in agriculture".


Participating schools at the event

The reality challenge which is expected to be a multi stakeholder platform would help address the challenges of agriculture land acquisition problems and also revive the interest of graduates to go into agribusiness.

“This platform brings together stakeholders like those in academia, industry, land owners, banks and investors, Infact, we have chiefs on our project who are talking with other chiefs to release lands to start-ups, infact the Omanhene of Suhum, Nana Ayeh Kofi I has released over 10,000 acres of land ready for the project,” he reiterated.