Education Key To Agriculture Initiatives

The drive for a successful and productive agriculture sector is hinged on the adoption and proper adaptation of agriculture technology driven by education and research, an expert from Israel has said.

According to Mr Oded Halamit, Acting Director of the MASHAV Agricultural Training Centre in Kibbutz Shefayim, in Israel, the country's success in agriculture was because the sector had benefitted from high levels of investment in research and development and a well-developed educational system, among others.

He said this at a Ghana-Israel Agricultural Technology Breakfast Dialogue in Accra, on Thursday.

The event was a precursor to the 20th International Agricultural Exhibition and Conference-AGRITECH ISRAEL 2018, to be held in Tel Aviv from May 8 to 10, 2018.

He said technology was key to making the most of the limited resources of agriculture, and that, Israel had built capabilities in various areas of agricultural technology, including irrigation, greenhouse or protected environments as well as post-harvest technologies, among others.

Mr Halamit said in agriculture, it was important that farmers are able to follow the protocols in farming to bring about maximum productivity.

Citing an example of a cassava farmer, Mr Halamit, said it was important for the farmer to be able to determine how much fertiliser was needed for the crop, which kind of fertiliser to use and at which time in the growth cycle of the crop, when was the right time to harvest, what standards of colour or firmness the crops should have at harvest time, in order to fetch the best price.

'This farmer should be very rigorous….he should be technical about the things he's doing. He should be able to calculate the percentage of pesticide to put in a sprayer for his field and how many tanks he will need for the field and also how many times to apply it in a month,' he noted.

He explained that these decisions required people with some education, discipline and technical instructions.

This importance of education in agriculture in Israel is underscored by the requirement of a minimum of a high school degree to go into farming in Israel.

Mr Halamit took participants through Israel's strengths and capabilities in various sectors of agriculture, including dairy farming, of which Israel is a world leader, aquaculture, seed production, precision agriculture, and others. He pledged his country's readiness to support Ghana in her quest to develop the agriculture sector.

Mr Ami Mehl, Ambassador of Israel to Ghana, said agriculture was a very serious technological and scientific sector, as seen in Israel's agriculture sector, which had excelled because of the technology and scientific approaches used.

'Agriculture is no fun; agriculture is a very serious business; it is a business, it is serious, it is very technological and very scientific, so if we want to succeed in agriculture, we have to work very seriously,' he noted.

He said he had been a farmer before and had helped establish the Kibbutz in the middle of the dessert in Israel, where farming was successfully done, proving that, it was possible to farm anywhere.

'Of course you have to adjust the soil and climate to what you're going to do; we are going to do it together,' he said, emphasising that, it was the mutual cooperation that would bring good results.

He said the 2018 edition of AGRITECH; held every three years in May, will see many visitors from all over the world, including a delegation from Ghana, led by the Minister of Agriculture.

This year's AGRITECH conference will focus on the unique challenges faced in light of global warming, climate change, water scarcity and other factors

Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture, commended Israel's impact on world food security, despite its small size and largely dessert land, saying, Ghana could learn a lot from Israel.

He said his Ministry was re-negotiating an agreement with an Israeli company to set up three agriculture centres to train more people in agriculture, and help to realise government's vision of the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.