According to the Rector of Prisons in charge of agriculture, Hanson Kwame Adu Awuku, the Ghana Prisons Service's attempts to advance its agricultural projects and support the growth of the industry are on track.
22 of the service's agricultural stations have already received funding from its agriculture revolving fund to help them produce crops and trees like maize, rice, vegetables, cowpea, soyabean, cassava, cocoa, oil palm, woodlots, and livestock like pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, and grasscutters, as well as aquaculture and the production of broilers and other poultry.
Mr. Awuku claims that the investment was made to demonstrate even more clearly how agriculture served as the foundation of the organization by supplementing convicts' ration costs with goods from the business.
He was speaking to a group of chosen officers during an agribusiness training session.
The training was conducted in conjunction with the University of Ghana School of Agriculture as part of the Design Thinking Approach (BRADETA) initiative.
It was designed to increase the capability of officers with non-agricultural training in the service to complement the government's prisoner ration and to provide both the skills and the funding to carry out agricultural development operations.
The officers, who came from various stations, including Kenyase, Kpando, Amanfrom, Adwira, and Jamestown, would go through theoretical and practical modules to properly increase their understanding of agricultural studies and practices.
Farming facility
According to Mr. Awuku, the training course was designed to provide non-agricultural workers at the service's five farming stations with a foundational understanding of agriculture.
He said that by keeping its clients in secure custody and maintaining public safety, the agency has over the years played a crucial role in the internal security of the nation.
The provision of useful skills, he claimed, was part of their mandate in the provision of reformation and rehabilitation and the vision of the current administration to increase internally generated funds through agriculture, while international best practice advocates a departure from the old warehousing of inmates.
As a result, the training was an investment in developing the officers' skills in the procedures involved in planting crops including rice, cassava, and maize.
In addition to the skills that convicts learn in our agricultural stations, agriculture has been the Ghana Prisons Service's main source of income because of the goods that come from the business.
According to Mr. Awuku, efforts are being undertaken to increase the value of palm and cassava crops through processing in order to produce gari and palm oil, respectively.
He consequently pleaded with the students to treat the training seriously because it was rigorous.
"The service requires from you a high level of professionalism and discipline during the training, even if it is not testable," he continued.
Readiness
Professor Irene Egyir, dean of the University of Ghana's School of Agriculture, praised the service for taking the initiative and noted that it was well-known for its farms throughout all of the regions where it engaged in livestock, poultry, crops, cereals, and legumes, among other agricultural activities.
She said that the training was an effort to increase the number of skilled agriculture professionals.