National Service Scheme expands farming business, starts 20,000 acre farm at Kumawu
The National Service Scheme has ventured into farming as part of efforts to create jobs and help the country achieve food sustainability.
A 20,000-acre land at Kumawu in the Sekyere district in the Ashanti Region is the place where the scheme is operating its new farm.
Mr Osei Assibey Antwi, Executive director of NSS revealed this during the National Service Week Celebration as he addressed executives of the National Service Personnel Association ( NASPA) in Kumasi.
This venture according to him comes to add up to already existing maize farms across the country. The only difference the Kumawu farms is that it will consist of mixed crops and also animal husbandry.
Mr Antwi said the effort is in a bid to make the theme for the program “deployment for employment” a reality. The scheme decided to enter large-scale farming and is now seeking assistance from the German Agency for International Cooperation and Mastercard Foundation for funds to run the farms.
Graduates who studied agriculture will immediately be employed under the NSS scheme.
Personnel were advised by the Ashanti Regional Director of the scheme Mr Opoku Mensah to go to where they are posted by the scheme as it is part of serving the nation.
He pointed out that they are taken to places where their skills are needed not where they wished to be posted to.
On what he has achieved so far upon assuming office in the region, he said their Internally Generated Funds have fenced the premises and also there is a 24/7 CCTV to check and also ward off criminals.
