The Ohawu Agricultural College (OAC) in the Ketu North Municipality has, in collaboration with the Tu Delft University, Netherlands, and Holland GreenTech, graduated 43 students who studied Horticulture and Entrepreneurship Development at the Collage. The students took courses in seed selection, nursery practices, transplanting and care of the plants, as well as plant nutrition and disease control under the Horticulture course. Under the Entrepreneurship programme, they studied product development, and how to develop ideas, and produce the idea for the market, among others. The Netherlands Government funded the training project, dubbed the OAC Archipelago Training Project' which was run under a pilot for the youth in the area. The training followed a similar successful Archipelago project rolled out at the Kwadaso Agricultural College (KAC) in Kumasi for the youth in that area and funded by the European Union and other partners. At the OAC graduation ceremony held near Abor in the Volta Region, Mr Samue l Darbah, National Coordinator of the Archipelago Project, Kwadaso Agriculture College, said earlier trainees who participated in the programme at KAC were already doing well, establishing themselves on the market and others also in the process of production. Mr Darbah said the three-month training was to provide enhanced skills in horticulture production, farm management, soil management and marketing. He urged the OAC trainees to put the knowledge acquired into good practice and make livelihoods from them. Madam Anne-Katrien Denissen, Private Sector Development Coach, Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), said agriculture and horticulture production was very important for the government of The Netherlands just as it was for the government of Ghana, the reason they decided to train some youths so they could engage in the venture to also boost food production in the country and to make money as well. She said she was inspired by the entrepreneurship skills acquired under the project by the students, who ex hibited some of the products at an exhibition as part of the graduation ceremony, She expressed optimism that the project would be scaled up to other colleges after a thorough overview had been done, together with the TU Delft University and the Holland Greentech groups. Mr Ernest Abiew, Principal of OAC, said the institution would scale up the pilot programme so more people could benefit from it. 'We have to sustain it and look at the industry players and people who are related to Agric who may need such training,' he stated. He said the college already offered two main programmes, namely, a three-year diploma in General Agriculture and a two-year certificate in General Agric programme. He said in 2024, the college was planning to introduce another programme, a certificate in Animal Health and Production Services, which would also be a two-year course to train veterinary officers in the Southern sector especially. Currently, only one college in Tamale trains such officers in animal health. He said the horticulture and entrepreneurship programmes would be maintained as short courses. The OAC was established in 1965 as a Mechanisation centre attached to the then State Farms. It was later changed into a training institution training agricultural extension agents, formerly, agricultural extension officers. It presently trains more than 300 agricultural agents annually. Source: Ghana News Agency
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