The newly adjudged 2022 National Best farmer, Nana Yaw Sarpong Siriboe, has pledged to offer utmost support to the government to make agriculture attractive to the youth.
Speaking on this year’s theme ‘Accelerating Agriculture Development through Value Addition’ in his acceptance speech, Mr Siriboe mentioned that he craves the indulgence of the youth in agriculture.
Contrary to the misperception that agriculture, especially farming, is for the uneducated, unskilled and aged, the current Best Farmer, who doubles as a professional mechanical engineer, made a case for why the youth can actively participate in the sector.
According to him, the youth constitute a chunk of the labour force which when tapped efficiently can increase yield and improve profit margin.
It is for this reason he believes government must endeavor to make agriculture “sexy” for the youth in terms of increased reward, innovation, incentives and motivation.
Mr Siriboe commended the government for instituting a lot of measures to promote agriculture through programmes and initiatives that have seen exponential increase in youth participation.
He promised to top up government’s efforts by engaging the youth through hand on training to give them knowledge in best practices while addressing key concern in agriculture, especially climate change, pest disease control and post harvest loses.
Mr Siriboe also pledged to liaise with the ministries, media and other stakeholders to make the agenda of making agriculture attractive a successful one.
He made the comments on the grounds of the Jubilee Park in the Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua, where the grand durbar was held.