Strenghtening the capacity of four colleges of Agriculture

Project number: NICHE-ETH-270

Project title: Strenghtening the capacity of four colleges of Agriculture

Requesting organisation: Ministry of Food and Agriculture

Requesting organisation consortium partners: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; Quente

Description: Three out of ten regions of Ghana can be characterized by food insecurity. This means the population here doesn't have reliable access to a sufficient quantity of nutritious food. In the northern regions of Ghana 16% of all households were estimated to be either severely or moderately food insecure. The main factors contributing to food insecurity in Ghana are:

-poor infrastructure and human resource development issues;
-limited knowledge and means to increase production;
-weak innovative capacity of medium and smallholder farmers;
-poor access to inputs and underdeveloped commodity value chains.

Consequently, the access and availability of food for local communities can be considered as insecure and unstable.

Agricultural Colleges (TVET-level) in Ghana train mid-level personnel to provide technical support and extension services to farmers. A major challenge confronting the agricultural colleges relates to lack of practical skills by teaching staff and students.

The courses offered at the colleges take private sector and market needs insufficiently into consideration. Gender-concerns are not systematically addressed, both at educational level as at organisational level. Even though the colleges are managed professionally, strengthening is needed in several areas such as leadership and human resource-management. 

The project therefore aims to strengthen both the educational and organisational capacity of agricultural colleges (Kwadaso, Ohawu, Ejura and Damongo) to deliver male and female graduates that meet labour market and gender needs. In addition, staff of three farmer institutes will participate in trainings so as to ensure a similar educational approach for future staff working with medium to small scale farmers.