Ghana's Director of the Presidential Initiative on Agriculture and Agribusiness, Dr Peter Boamah Otokunor, has announced that senior high schools (SHS) in Ghana will soon begin cultivating their own farms to address persistent food shortages and delays under the Free SHS program.
Speaking at a consultative meeting with key stakeholders at St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School in Accra on Friday, August 29, 2025, Dr Otokunor said the initiative would involve on-campus farms focusing on seven main crops: rice, maize, sorghum, soybeans, onions, tomatoes, and, where possible, cassava and yams.
He explained that the intervention is designed to reduce the high cost of feeding 1.37 million students, which amounted to over GH¢2.8 billion in 2024. "The initiative is targeting more than 15,000 acres for the cultivation of selected crops to support the food and nutritional needs of our schools," he said.
For schools in urban areas with limited land, he suggested vertical farming and hydroponics as viable alternatives. "In a small space, even a quarter of this room, you can grow the equivalent of 10 acres of vegetables using vertical farming," he explained.
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