The chief of staff from the office of the Okyehene led a delegation to visit the Youth in Greenhouse Enterprise Project (YUGEP) production site at Kyebi. This was to assist 20 beneficiaries to undertake their first harvest of 600kg of cucumbers, bell peppers, and tomatoes produced from five (5) greenhouses out of the ten (10) already installed at Asikam, near Kyebi.
The YuGEP project is funded by the Ghana EXIM Bank and implemented by Agri-Impact Consult as part of both the Government of Ghana ‘Planting for Food and Job’ and 1D1F programs. The YuGEP project consisted of 100 top vent greenhouses of 6,440 sqm each installed in six regions of Ghana including Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Central, Volta, and Western. Preparatory work for the second phase of another 100 greenhouses has commenced and installation across different parts of the country would commence in January 2021.
Overall, the 200 tunnels are expected to produce 32 hectares of all-year-round vegetable production in Ghana. These pilots will pave way for more intensive vegetable cultivation in Ghana with increasing investment in greenhouse and other intensive cultivation to reduce the dependency on vegetable imports, create opportunity for import substitution and more importantly attract more young people into agriculture and agribusiness to create income and job.
The Kyebi cluster site has ten tunnels managed by twenty beneficiaries. The vegetables are cultivated by the beneficiaries with technical support from Agri-impact consult. Market access and marketing facilitation is provided by Fresh Logistics; an agro produce marketing company.
The delegation led by Nana Twumasi was delighted at the progress made and commended both the beneficiaries and the Agri-Impact team for successes achieved, the update of technology and the improvement of the working conditions of the 20 youth beneficiaries who were trained at Agri-impact Entrepreneurship and Technology Institute at Berekusu near Aburi. The Kyebi site is expected to produce over 200 tonnes of vegetables in the next 3 years. The site has created over 20 direct jobs and more than 30 indirect jobs already.
