Blue Skies School Farm Competition: 60 Schools, 700 Students Compete For Blueskies School Farm Awards In Koforidua

Listen to this article Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Who wins the noble prize, as the organisers of Blueskies School farm competition set 29th November 2019 for 60 selected basic and senior high schools with about 700 participants to battle in this 5th year Blue Skies School farm competition.

This initiative of Blue Skies Company Limited have their award ceremony always a week before the national farmers day celebration and this year would be extraordinary as deputy ministers of education and Agriculture including other personalities would be present at the ceremony.

In an interview with the PRO of the Blue Skies School Farm competition, Mr Alistair Djimatey on the Susubiribi morning show on Radio 1, 100.7fm on Tuesday October 22 2019, he disclosed to the host, Nana Kwabena Addo that the organisers have put all in place for the year’s competition.

Awards Categories
Alistair revealed that with the support of their sponsors, there are about 21 categories of awards for the competition. The Awards include: Best male Junior high school award, Best female Junior High school award, Best Male student award- Senior high school, Best female student award- senior high school, The best senior high school teacher award, Best Junior high school teacher award, The most environmentally friendly school, the most innovative school, the most entrepreneurial school, the best junior high school award, the best junior high school, Sir Lemuel Mantey Award, Founders Award, Smith Agyei Award, among other enviable awards.

Award Package
The main awards given at the ceremony are:

1. Computers ( Desktop) for schools
2. Laptops and Tablets for individuals
3. Agricultural farm inputs etc.

Aim of the Competition
“we realised the youth do not have the interest in agriculture and now that Agriculture science is imbedded into integrated science, Blueskies took it upon themselves to help the students engage in practical Agriculture to help reinvigorate in the minds of the Ghanaian youth, the need to see Agriculture as an alternative”- Alistair said.
He added that the school farm project will encourage the students after being enthused to partake in Agriculture, they would be able to come out with Agricultural plan, know what they want to grow and a strategy for market to support the government’s various policies in ensuring food security in the country.

Who Qualified For The Competition
The PRO, revealed that for the start, they announce for various interested schools to apply and after proper unbiased scrutiny to meet the requirements, a considerable number of schools are selected and given the logistics and inputs needed for the commencement of the project.

Agriseed also provided all the seeds for the competition

Sponsors
He thanked the sponsors of the project and pledged to do all they can to keep them in the project especially with the most environmentally friendly award introduced by Kibi Goldfields limited but called on all and sundry who have the heart of empowering the youth in Agriculture to come on board to support the enviable project.

Background

Blueskies School farm competition started 5 years ago with a pilot of 10 schools in the Nsawam Adoagyiri municipality but has now been able to cover 5 regions and aiming to cover the whole country in the shortest possible time. The victors in the competition from the beginning have always received their awards.

In 2018, Asokore SDA emerged winners in the SHS category while Chinto Basic school also topped the basic school category. Will these schools be able to defend? November 29 2019 will tell.

By: Radio1News|Ghana|Obido Nana Gyasi