The duo was conferred with the honour by the Nandom District Assembly and the Nandom District Directorate of Agriculture on the 34th Farmers Day Celebration, which fell on December 7, which was on the theme: “Agriculture, moving Ghana beyond aid”.
The Professors were both presented with goods carrier tricycle each, Knapsack sprayers and other assorted farming implements.
The two Fellows in academia have defied the erroneous impression that farming is the prerogative of illiterates and rural dwellers, by venturing into Commercial Farming in the Nandom District of the Upper West Region.
Professor Kuupole who together with his wife recently donated a library to his community of birth, has in the last ten years established about 10 acres of Banana Farm. The University Don is also into Teak and food crop cultivation along the banks of the Black Volta.
Professor Juventus Benongle Ziem is a commercial farmer, who has cultivated about seven acres of Banana farm, 22 acres of Cashew and a number of acreages of Mangoes and food crops.
Both Professor Kuupole and Professor Ziem through their commercial farming activities in Nandom, have created hundreds of direct and indirect jobs to the women especially and the teaming youth of Nandom and its surroundings including nearby Burkina Faso.
Hitherto, no one envisaged that Banana could be cultivated commercially in the Western Savannah area of northern Ghana. These two gentlemen however, proved all doubters wrong with this innovation through irrigation in the Nandom District.
In an address, the District Chief Executive for Nandom District, Mr Thaddeus Arkum Aasoglenang, said the activities of the two was in tandem with the Agricultural Policies of the government led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo.
The Planting for Export and Rural Development, he said is a policy which intends to replicate what the University Professors were already involved in in the last few years.
Mr. Aasoglenang said it was appropriate the two innovative and enterprising sons of Nandom were being recognized and awarded for their contribution to agriculture development in the District.
He urged farmers and entrepreneurs in the District to take advantage of government’s interventions in agriculture to boost production, adding: “Farmers must also adopt good agronomic practices and eschew negative tendencies that will derail the investments by government and other organizations in the sector”.
He noted that the theme for this year’s Farmers Day Celebration, “Agriculture, Moving Ghana Beyond Aid” was appropriate and timely.
The government’s planting for food and jobs programme, he noted had yielded impressive results since it was rolled out.
“Following the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, the Agricultural Sector performance witnessed a growth rate of 8.4 per cent in 2017,” he said, adding, “this was after almost a decade of erratic sector performance with an average growth rate of 3.4per cent.
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Source: GNA
