The Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture (KITA) is collaborating with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and Ghana Education Service (GES) to set up a school gardening concept for rural Junior and Senior High schools in the country.
The programme is being co-sponsored by Future Farmers America, Tree Planting and Agro-forestry with Trees for the Future and Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation, all pro-agricultural non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the United States of America.
Mr Lovans Owusu-Takyi, Registrar and Programmes Co-ordinator of KITA, told the GNA in an interview that the concept aimed in the long term to improve agricultural productivity to ensure food sufficiency in the country in the wake of the global economic and food crisis.
Mr Owusu-Takyi said it would also help to encourage the students to have interest in farming whiles also bringing back the defunct school gardening programme.
He expressed the hope that schools in the rural areas would collaborate with traditional rulers to release lands for the take-off of the project.
Mr Owusu-Takyi said KITA has, in the last 25 years, trained over 10,000 graduates in fields such as research and entrepreneurship, veterinary assistants, extension and project officers.
He said whiles most of the graduates had won best farmer awards others had also received scholarships to continue their education in agriculture in Ghana and abroad.