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The Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD UBIDS) chapter of the Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC)’s Youth Agripreneurs Forum (YAF) has been launched with a call on students and young people to change their mindset about agriculture.
YAF is a student-led medium for sharing and exchanging ideas, interests and engaging in activities related to agriculture and agribusiness.
It is an initiative of the Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC) with support from the Mastercard Foundation (McF) to equip students with relevant skills needed to create business innovations in the agricultural sector.
Speaking during the launch, the Patron of the SDD UBIDS YAF and Faculty Advisor of the KIC Agritech Challenge, Prof Stanley Kojo Dary said the YAF initiative was aimed at developing positive perception about agriculture among students and to position them well for taking up entrepreneurial ventures in the sector.
He said the agricultural sector was brimmed with lots of opportunities that were yet untapped which the students and young people should be inspirited to take advantage of.
“And the reason why they [KIC] are focusing on it [agripreneurship] is that there is a very large potential within the agricultural value chain that has been largely untapped.
“And the point is that, many of us have misconception about agriculture. For most of us, when you talk of agriculture, your mind is the farmer, the man on the farm with the hoe and the cutlass, that’s how you think of agriculture,” he observed.
Prof Dary explained that agriculture was beyond the ‘hoe and cutlass’ system of farming to encompassing a broad scope of value chains that ranged from production to manufacturing and mechanization through to processing, packaging and marketing.
He lamented the assemblage of efforts on the production sector by many people at the expense of the other sectors which are left untapped but with great potential.
Prof Dary, who swore the YAF executives into office, urged them to work diligently to ensure they achieve the set goals of the YAF in the campus and beyond.
In his remarks, Emmanuel Banye Nutaaye, the President of the YAF, SDD UBIDS, called on members of the YAF, students and other youth groups to collaborate with the YAF executives to execute their plans for the tenure.
“All of us have to come on board because it is about teamwork; one person cannot run the show, we need of us on board,” he said.
Mr. Nutaaye hinted that the YAF would be embarking on an integrated agricultural project on the campus where it would run a mechanized farm, cultivating food and vegetable crops and rearing fish.
In harmony with this “fresh farm” project, according to the YAF President, would be the “farm to table” initiative which would take the form of a cooking competition.
He added that the YAF would be holding talk shows, seminars, and agripreneurship academic discourses to spark interest and inspire students and young people to take up ventures in agriculture.
Present at the launch were Dr Felicia Naatu, a technical team, member of the KIC Agritech Challenge and Head of Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the SDD UBIDS; Mr. Moses Yengnemenga, the Program Officer of the KIC Agritech Challenge, SDD UBIDS; Mr. Seidu Mubarak, the General Manager of Antika Company Limited; Mr. Eric Kuupole, a past fellow of the KIC Agritech Challenge; among significant others.
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