The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, assisted by the Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has inaugurated the Youth in Greenhouse Enterprise Project for the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
The Asantehene, who is also the Chancellor of the KNUST performed the inauguration to climax the investiture of the first female Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, Professor (Mrs) Rita Akosua Dickson.
Funded through a loan from the GhanaExim Bank, and facilitated by a private sector company – Agripack Impact, 20 greenhouses valued at GH¢70,000 each were built to create permanent employment opportunities for the youth in agriculture.
The Youth in Greenhouse Enterprise Project is to efficiently promote the general investment towards the production of greenhouse vegetables in the country. It is also targeted as an import-substituting initiative to reduce the annual importation of vegetables into Ghana and increase internal vegetable production.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was also in attendance, expressed optimism that the project would offer employment for the teeming graduate unemployed youth in the country:
Ghana EXIM Bank, being the principal financial institution that drives the success of Government’s 1D1F special initiative, is championing youth development and empowerment; making sure the youth is not exempted in the developmental agenda of the government, as well as catapulting the government’s plans of industrializing the country.
There will also be a transfer of skills and new technology in fruits and vegetable production and improved standards in farming and marketing of fruits and vegetables.
With the aim of building 100 greenhouses across the country, it is envisioned that the initiative will be an accelerating force in the facilitation of rural economic transformation, and increase standard of living, generate foreign exchange and promote Ghana beyond Aid Agenda.
The KNUST Greenhouse Enterprise Project is part of pilots in six regions, namely the Ashanti Region, Greater Accra, Volta, Central, Western and Eastern.
