The government is to cultivate over 15,000 acres of land under the School Farm Initia­tive Programme (SFIP) to boost food production in the country.The initiative to be implemented across 700 schools in the country will also see to the production of livestock and cultivation of strategic food crops to support the food and nutritional needs of the students.It will also significantly reduce the cost burden of providing ade­quate, healthy and nutritious food for the students on the govern­ment.The Director in charge of Pres­idential Initiatives in Agriculture and Agribusiness (PIAA) at the Office of the President, Dr Peter Boamah Otokunor, disclosed this here in Tamale on Sunday at a stakeholders' engagement meeting on the school farm initiatives.In 2024 alone, Dr Otokunor said the government spent over GH¢2.8 billion on feeding about 1.37 million students in second-cycle institutions.Consequently, the SFI is pro­jected to save between 30 to 50 per cent of the annual expenditure on feeding, equivalent to GH¢1.4 billion each year.The beneficiary schools would have a School Farm Committee to be chaired by the Head Teacher with the School Farm Manager (SFM) and their Assistants, includ­ing student leaders and teachers as members, to help provide leader­ship and accountability support for the programme.The School Farm Initiative is a Presidential Initiative introduced in partnership with Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), Ghana Education Service (GES) and Na­tional Service Authority (NSA) by the PIAA Directorate at the Office of the President.The idea of the introduction of the school farm is to transform Ghana Senior High Schools into vibrant hubs of food production, experiential learning, and agricul­tural innovation.Dr Otokunor added that the initiative would help to reduce the import dependency on externally produced food crops, save foreign exchange, build the capacity of the young people, create sustainable jobs, and minimise post-harvest losses by integrating the produc­tion into structured school-based supply chains.He added that socially, it would strengthen the market funda­mentals and promote women's participation in agribusiness by linking women traders and local markets to the school farms, to al­low smooth trade and commodity exchange among the school farms.He said this was to ensure an injection of some doses of sus­tainability into the initiative, so as to stand the test of time.The Director added that they were putting together a robust and efficient management strategy in place to effectively manage the farms across the country.He said the Initiative was target­ing to provide opportunities for about 1,400-2,100 unemployed Agric College graduates, while creating between 5,000-10,000 indirect jobs from input supply, agro-processing, logistics, and marketing.Mr Alhassan Sualihu Dandaa­wa, Deputy Administrator of the GETFund, said the initiative would provide inputs ranging from seeds, crop protection materials, crop growth products, including organic and inorganic fertilis­er, mechanisation equipment, technical support, food training in climate-smart agricultural practic­es, supply of quality animal feed, and breed stocks for livestock production.He said the SFI was not simply about farming, it was about trans­forming the schools into centres of agro-innovation, practical learn­ing, agro-productivity, and food self-reliance.Mr Dandaawa, however, appealed to the stakeholders to support the initiative to succeed in all its implementation. FROM YAHAYA NUHU NA­DAA, TAMALE🔗 Follow Ghanaian Times WhatsApp Channel today.

https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAjG7g3gvWajUAEX12Q🌍 Trusted News.

Real Stories.

Anytime, Anywhere.✅ Join our WhatsApp Channel now!https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAjG7g3gvWajUAEX12Q