The KNUST Nutrition and Sustainable Agri-Food Collaborative in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation (Nkabom Collaborative) has expanded its transformative Trainer of Trainers (ToT) programme to benefit 60 students from the Animal Health and Production College in Pong-Tamale.
The 10-day training session, facilitated by tutors who were beneficiaries of the ToT initiative, seeks to deepen agribusiness knowledge and equip participants with practical skills to thrive within the agricultural value chain.
The intervention forms part of the Nkabom Collaborative’s broader vision of transforming agricultural education into an innovation-driven and entrepreneurship-oriented sector.
The Entrepreneurship Pillar Lead, Prof. Wilberforce Achiaw Owusu-Ansah, urged participants to embrace innovation and develop solutions that would create value within the agricultural sector.
“Your own tutors are going to help you with the support of our facilitators to help you come up with ideas, and those ideas should be what bring about innovation and value addition,” he stated.
He highlighted that the programme was designed to equip students with practical entrepreneurial and problem-solving skills that could help reduce unemployment and underemployment in the country.
“Our aim is to reduce unemployment and underemployment in the country and the student-led approach adopted by the training will help you actively contribute to the learning process,” he said.
Encouraging participants to fully commit themselves to the training, he explained that the skills acquired would remain relevant whether participants established their own businesses or worked within existing organisations.
Prof. Owusu-Ansah also encouraged participants to explore opportunities within the dairy industry, particularly fresh milk production and processing.
“I know you have quite a lot of cows, it will be my pleasure if you could find ways in which you can come out with dairy products, especially fresh milk,” he said.
The Principal of the Animal Health and Production College, Mr. Mohammed Nuhu Adams, described the intervention as timely and impactful for students pursuing careers in veterinary and animal sciences.
According to him, the training would help students transition from being solely veterinary service providers into agripreneurs capable of establishing poultry and livestock businesses.
“These skill sets that are being provided to the students or the graduates will go a long way to give them the entrepreneurial skills and the mindset that will turn them not just to service providers for veterinary services, but also to become agri-entrepreneurs in poultry and livestock business,” he stated.
One of the facilitators, Luther Abdul Haki Nasamu, emphasised the importance of entrepreneurship in addressing graduate unemployment.
He added that participants were being taken through modules including the foundations of entrepreneurship, pathways to agri-prosperity, business model canvas development, and agribusiness management.
“The Nkabom programme teaches the students why they should go into business and pursue self-employment instead of waiting for government to employ them,” he said.
