The five-day programme, held in Accra, was on the theme “Five Years of Grooming, Training and Empowerment – Where we are now with our agribusiness”.

An initiative of Agrihouse Foundation, a non- governmen­tal agricultural capacity building organisation, the programme was attended by 125 agricultural students from 27 Senior High and tertiary institutions.

As part of the programme, the beneficiary students were mentored and coached and taken through topics such as com­munication, e-agric, food safety management principles, digital marketing, and financial proposal development.

The students were taken on field trips to observe at first hand the operations of some agribusi­ness companies and farms in the country, and the high point of the programme was the Agromonti Market Development Pitch, a pro­gramme to help the participants to showcase their business ideas for support.

Charlotte Yawa Sedzodo from the Adidome Farm Institute in the Volta Region won the pitch with a cash prize of GH¢35, 000 from Agromonti to start her own business.

The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Yaw Frim­pong-Addo, in his address, said his outfit was proud to be associated with the programme.

He said the Ministry recognised the AGSTUD as a complementary role to government’s efforts to promote agriculture and provide opportunity for agric students to exhibit their skills.

The Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alber­ta Nana Akyaa Akosa, said the AGSTUD was initiated four years ago to provide training, mentoring and coaching on the practical steps and opportunities to agriculture students to help them develop themselves, and provide them with the required soft skills for the agribusiness market.

Ms Akosa said the AGSTUD Africa was a practical beginner agribusiness initiative aimed at building the capacity of Agric students and beginner of Agribusi­nesses and start-ups.

“AGSTUD seeks to develop students and youth leadership skills; foster conversations sur­rounding the challenges and op­portunities in the corporate world of agribusiness,” she said.

Ms Akosa said Agrihouse Foun­dation believed that the youth were the frontline in the movement to change the agricultural systems and food security situation of the nation, stressing that through AGSTUD, Agrihouse Foundation would continue to invest and sup­port more youth in the agribusi­ness sector.