ACHI project: Horticulture in Ghana for a brighter future

Both the horticulture and entrepreneurship courses offered by the Kwadaso Agricultural College and TU Delft respectively, boosted my confidence in starting my own business. I was able to grow four different vegetables successfully in my first trial. In recent times, I have expanded my scope of knowledge to processing of cooking spices which will soon be an addition to the business. We built our own solar dryer so now we are able to process fresh chili pepper into chili powder. Also, I have employed a farm hand to help me on the day to day operations.
Joy Addai, Batch 3 graduate

Reducing Post-Harvest Waste

Stay tuned for more updates!

Introduction

The horticulture sector in Ghana has a lot of potential, for employment as well as in addressing food security and food safety. The production and post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables is a market of increasing interest and potential – not just for Ghanaian companies, but also for Dutch expertise and products.

Looking at the future climate scenarios for Ghana and the current educational offer in horticulture – there is a significant knowledge and skills gap between theories taught from the books and the real-life climate smart agricultural practices and business mindset that are needed to become a successful horticulture farmer. To address this skills gap, 3 years ago, the TU Delft teamed up with the Kwadaso Agricultural College (KAC) in Kumasi and with Holland Greentech Ghana (HGT) as part of the Archipelago program, currently called the ACHI program.

The 4 other colleges are in 4 other regions, being: Volta region (Ohawu Agric College), Northern region (Damango Agric. College), Ashanti region (Ejura Agric. College) and the Bono Ahafo region (Wenchi Agric. College). By scaling this approach our project will target 3 main outcomes:

To stimulate the economic development in the horticulture sector by stimulating green growth and by tackling (youth) unemployment through skills development
To promote climate smart practices in Ghana for food security and combat environmental and climate challenges related to horticulture
To generate business opportunities and build a very relevant network and improved business climate for the Dutch actors that are active in the Ghanaian horticulture sector

More about the program

Since the beginning of 2020, the TU Delft together with Holland Greentech Ghana (HGT), has worked extensively with the Kwadaso Agricultural College (KAC) in Kumasi to build capacity and improve the practical education in the field of horticulture and introduce entrepreneurial skills. By introducing practical and climate smart horticulture skills and assignments together with the Holland Greentech Ghana team of agronomists and by offering education on “farming as a business” with support of the Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship, we realised a concrete and sustainable transformation at KAC that is now fully embedded at the college.

The main objective of the Archipelago program was to tackle youth unemployment and to do this, together with KAC and HGT we developed a tailor-made 4-month training program, which we called: Farming as a business. This program is offered by KAC to young, motivated people – outside of KAC.

Training for who?

Young people who want to study horticulture and who like to find employment in the horticulture sector of Ghana, either as an entrepreneur/farmer or employed at an agricultural company/farm. Next to the group of graduates, a selection of agricultural companies are directly targeted since they will directly benefit from suitably skilled new employees.

What type of activities?

Scaling-up and implementation of a 6 month TVET training program to different horticulture colleges in Ghana, tailor-made blended learning program for a job in the horticulture sector in Ghana, either as an entrepreneur or employed at a farm or company. This program is formulated and implemented by Ghanaian lead farmers with support from a Dutch-Ghanaian team.
Training of trainers at the Kwadaso Agricultural College and the lead farmers in Ghana, including entrepreneurship training for students, farmers and other interested participants;
Facilitation of job placement through close collaboration between the Kwadaso Agricultural College and the European and Ghanaian private sector;
Raising awareness on the potential of the Ghanaian horticulture sector and contributing to the economic development of the horticulture sector.

I learned a lot from the entrepreneurship training that was offered to us by TU Delft and Kwadaso Agricultural College. It is my hope that in the coming years, I would also have a commercial farm producing horticultural crops for value addition and export. I am still working with my team members from the Archipelago training on our project and excited to say that our Coco Chips are available on the Ghana market!
Theophilus Ansah, batch 3 graduate