National Service Scheme To Expand Farms

The National Service Scheme (NSS) is seeking to expand its farm projects in the Greater Accra Region. Currently, the NSS has a crop farm at Dawhenya where tomatoes, maize, green pepper and cucumber are cultivated and a livestock farm at Nungua with more than 10,500 animals. The plan to expand the farms came to light when board members of the NSS, led by the Chairperson, Madam Gifty Mahama Biyira and the Executive Director of the NSS, Alhaji Alhassan Imoro, toured the farms last Tuesday. The tour aimed to assess the farms and examine the possibility of expanding them to help reduce the rate of graduate unemployment in the country. Addressing the media, the Greater Accra Regional Director of the NSS, Nana Odiasempa Antwi Obugyei II, said more than 6,000 bags of maize were expected to be harvested this year. Nungua Livestock farm Nana Antwi explained that the Nungua livestock farm had four cages of fingerlings (tilapia) which would serve as a source of quality fish for public consumption. Poultry and livestock reared there include guinea fowls, goats, sheep, ostrich, broilers and layers, rabbits and grass cutters. The farm has a processing room where the animals are prepared, packaged and sent out to the market for public consumption. Skills and policies Alhaji Imoro said progress at the farm indicated that the policies put in place by the board were working. He said deploying service persons to the farms was a way of providing them with skills and knowledge in agriculture, adding. �We want them to take agriculture as a life-long project as they complete their service.� Madam Biyira commended service persons for their contribution to the progress of the farms at Dawhenya and Nungua. She said the focus of the project was to train the youth in the field of entrepreneurship.