About 51 Ghanaian students are currently in Israel for an 11-month intensive practical agricultural training.
The programme dubbed: “Agro Studies”, wound give the students the opportunity to focus on agriculture capacity building, and help promote food security in Ghana.
The students included 4000 students from other Africa countries pursuing agriculture studies.
The students have been dispatched to different farms in Israel, where they would learn about crop and animal production, modern farming techniques, such as drip irrigation, cultivation and management of green-house crops, including tomatoes, green pepper, watermelon and cabbages.
Briefing Journalists from African Anglophone Countries, the Regional Sales Manager for Africa, who is also in charge of Danziger Farms in Israel, Mr Iran Honig, said the programme was a collaboration between the State of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government of Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
He said the students have been attached to cooperative farms, called Kibbutz or Moshav, adding that the students would work on the field for five days and take a day theoretical in Agro Studies.
“Here at Danziger Farms, we have eight Ghanaian students who are learning on the field through innovative floriculture, then they would be rotated to other farms for different ideas,” Mr Honig said.
Mr Honig said there was the need to support Africa to achieve its agriculture targets to be able to feed the people and create employment.
According to him, the old way of farming should be improved upon by Africans in order to harvest more, adding that “now innovation is the key, we don’t have to depend on rainfall before we start to plant, but we can use drip irrigation and other modern methods to farm.”
Mr Honig was optimistic that the beneficiaries would return to their various countries and share their experience and knowledge with their colleagues for a fast track agricultural development.
A beneficiary, Mr Enock Agyemang, from Ghana commended sponsors of the programme, and pledged to focus on the studies.
“I must say we are learning a lot here, such as greenhouse technology, drip irrigation and others. Israel has no fertile land yet they have made it when it comes to agriculture all because they use greenhouse technology, but in Ghana we have all the fertile land but we can produce more,” he said.
Mr Agyemang called on government of Ghana to consider greenhouse technology and drip irrigation towards the success of its ‘Planting for Food and Jobs.’
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