The East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation has opened a learning farm at the University of Ghana in Accra to provide students and local farmers with practical training in vegetable production and give partners an opportunity to observe its work.
The facility, officially opened on Tuesday, 20 October, will support internships and help students apply the agricultural knowledge acquired in the classroom.
Speaking to Myjoyonline after the ceremony on Tuesday, the Foundation’s Country Director, Jemima Djah, said the farm would allow students to gain experience in growing and managing crops.
“We use it as an opportunity to train students in the university, to come and do internships, to practicalise the knowledge that they are having in the university,” she said.
“So they learn a lot of theory, but this place gives them an opportunity to practice and grow a crop and make it hands-on practical for them.”
Ms Djah explained that although Accra is outside the organisation’s operational regions, the new facility would make its work more accessible to partners based in the capital.
Previously, partners interested in observing the Foundation’s activities had to travel to its learning facilities in the middle belt.
“We are setting up this one in Accra for partners who are always also in Accra. They want to see what we do,” she said.
The Accra farm demonstrates vegetable production techniques, alongside business plans to help visitors understand the costs and potential returns associated with different crops.
Ms Djah said the Foundation’s training begins with crop selection, encouraging farmers to consider local growing conditions, potential pests and diseases, and market opportunities before planting.
“When you finally select your crop that you want to grow, we take them through the business module,” she explained.
Training also covers land preparation, seedling production, transplanting, mulching, water conservation and pest management.
She said mulching could help farmers conserve soil moisture, suppress weeds and reduce production costs, while traps offered options for managing pests before using pesticides.
“There are different ways that you can control the pest even before you go to a pesticide as a last resort,” she said.
The facility complements the Foundation’s broader work under a four-year project supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Accra.
The project, currently in its second year, trains smallholder vegetable farmers in the Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, Ashanti and Upper East regions.
Ms Djah said the Foundation had trained more than 30,000 farmers since beginning its training activities in 2023 and planned to establish another learning farm in the Upper East Region.
She encouraged young people to consider vegetable production as an income-generating venture.
“Farming is a profitable business. That’s what our project is trying to establish,” she said.