An Agric Advocate and Founder of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, says getting the youth into agribusiness requires creating an enabling environment that enables them to thrive.
According to Ms. Akosa, there is a significant gap in advocacy when it comes to driving the youth towards agriculture. She also questioned the measures and platforms in place to support and engage young people in this sector.
To build the next generation of agribusiness professionals, she believes it is crucial to establish a structure that the youth can embrace and appreciate. Ms. Akosa expressed these views during her participation in the Citi Business Festival Forum on Tuesday.
“I think there is a huge gap which is advocacy. We are trying to drive the youth into agriculture but what are we putting in place? what are the platforms that the youth can use? I think that it is about time that if we want to build the next generation of agribusiness people, we look at a structure that they can brace and appreciate,” she stated.
She said that the agribusiness ecosystem had a big value chain where the youth could fall into various sectors according to their preferences and interests.
“It is a big cycle of a value chain and we all cannot be doing the farming,” she said, adding “Some could be processors and the rest. The future is now, they can only complement what the government is doing, they cannot compete so we need that environment to be able to thrive. There are opportunities in the value chain that when we are exposed to we can take advantage of.”
Akosa’s call for an enabling environment for young people in agribusiness was echoed by other panelists on the forum including Professor Roger Kanton and Mr Kwesi Korboe, CEO of GIRSAL.
They argued that the government needs to do more to provide young people with access to land, credit, and training. They also need to create a more supportive regulatory environment for agribusiness businesses.
With the right support, they said young people can play a major role in the development of Ghana’s agribusiness sector. They have the energy, the creativity, and the drive to make a real difference. But they need the opportunity to do so.
About Citi Business Festival 2023
The annual Citi Business Festival is a month-long initiative marked with on-air and outdoor events in the month of June to equip Ghanaian businesses with strategies to grow and scale up while meeting emerging trade and commerce trends.
This year, it is themed generally around the Made in Ghana Agenda.
There are live radio on-air series at 9:05am every Monday to Thursday on the Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM. On Fridays however, it airs at 7:10am.
Aside from the on-air series, there will be weekly forums on Citi TV every Tuesday to hold discussions on the theme for the week as well as special TV feature stories aimed at showcasing indigenous Ghanaian businesses.
The Citi Business Festival 2023 is powered by Citi TV and Citi FM in partnership with Absa Bank and is proudly sponsored
