The Kanton Senior High Secondary School has harvested 30 bags of maize and three and a half bags of soybean from a two-acre farm cultivated as a pilot to help alleviate their food problems.
Mr Mohammed Kanton, the headmaster of the school who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the objective was to supplement students’ feeding and to let students know that farming was scientific so that some of them if not all could engage in farming in future after school since agriculture was an attractive venture.
Mr Kanton said, “We cultivated two units (acre) of maize and one unit (acre) of soya beans for the start of our pilot project with the hope of improving as the years go by”.
“For the maize, we have brought home thirty bags as our yield of harvest whilst the soybeans realised was three and a half bags.
Tractor ploughing for the three acres, fertilizer, and purchase of seeds, was borne by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), which supported the project in providing the resources needed”, he explained.
The PTA chairman of the school, Mr Abubakar Suleiman and the executives supported the project whilst the students provided minimal labour after classes and during weekends.
Mr Jacob Batong Mahamud, the Senior house master in an interview with the GNA, said, “We realized that farming is a good venture and could actually support individuals and families if the right agronomic practices were carried out for students to see and for a school particularly, labour was not stressful as students went to work in batches for less than an hour for the size of the farm occasionally”.
Mr Mahamud, “I must say my headmaster led the crusade of ‘Operation feed Yourself’ with the PTA which in my view was positive”.
He expressed hope that with the necessary support and interest in agriculture more crops could be cultivated and harvested.
Source: GNA