Friday, 29 March

‘It’s not a talk shop but a work shop’ | CMG launches Operation Feed Yourself

Business
CMG launches Operation Feed Yourself

Class91.3FM, one of the several media houses belonging to the Class Media Group (CMG), today, Wednesday, 7 December 2022, launched its Operation Feed Yourself (RELOADED) initiative at the forecourt of the media house with a call on its audience and Ghanaians, in general, to produce their own food and reduce overdependence on exported food product.

Speaking at the launch, Group COO of CMG, Mr Theodore Atadefura Edwards, said the media conglomerate is ready to use its network to push the agenda of backyard gardening and small-holder farming in every home.

In his view, the initiative is a “wake-up call to the realities of the times.”

“God has blessed Africa, God has blessed Ghana abundantly with vast arid land, good weather and strong people; yet, we are hungry and poor people because we have failed or refused to take advantage of God’s blessings that He has given us free of charge,” he lamented.

According to Mr Edwards, “while we think we can seek greener pastures or look for greener or blue-collar jobs, we can also encourage every single one to make farming a way of life”.

“From a hobby of backyard farming to mechanised farming, all of these will help us, as a nation, as a people”, he noted, adding: “Once we are involved in this, we won’t have to cry when there’s war between Russia and Ukraine … we will not be over dependent on importation of food and thereby put pressure on the currency”.

He noted that CMG has offered to champion this cause, led by Class91.3FM and its sister stations.

“This is not a talk shop, but it is a workshop and we are ready to go the length with our network and our reach to drive this great initiative,” he stressed.

Mr Edwards called on government agencies led by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, as well as chiefs, queen mothers, corporate Ghana, academia and all other stakeholders, “to rally round this great initiative by CMG to attain self-sufficiency in the staple food we eat.”

He advised households: “You do not need to wait to have huge acres of land to start a backyard farming” while revealing that CMG has acquired a 40-acre land to farm and make this dream a reality.

For her part, Prof Irene Agyiri, the Dean of the School of Agriculture, University of Ghana, said the university is available to offer support in terms of training to interested persons who want to engage in gardening at home.

She said with the school’s initiative dubbed ‘Design Thinking’, they teach young people and the young at heart organic gardening.

In the School of Agriculture, she disclosed that they do not only teach the science of agriculture, but “we also teach technology, innovation, the maths of agriculture and the arts of agriculture.”

Sharing her personal experience, she said she got her hands dirty doing gardening during the lockdown period at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and months after the lockdown, she had a lot of greens to feed on.

She called on CMG not to limit the initiative to only persons living in Accra but across the country.

“It shouldn’t only be in Accra, I’m happy the regions are on board. As we push this, let the young people be on board, old people be on board, urban people be on board and rural people be on board, too”.

She encouraged households not to limit backyard gardening to only vegetables but extend it to small fish ponds, mushrooms, snails, grass cutter and rabbit rearing.

She further called on CMG to involve existing Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are already supporting individuals gardening at home.

Prof Agyiri also wants the initiative sustained.

In her words: “Class FM, do not let it stay here and do not leave it to the government. Sustain it. Whatever you’ll do to get this going perpetually is what I’m calling for, the school of agriculture is ready to support in any area”.

The Ambassador for CMG’s Operation Feed Yourself, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, reiterated his earlier call that anybody who eats must get involved.

“We need to teach ourselves and our children the culture of hard work and the government has to buy into it because the government controls everything in Ghana,” he said.

Class FM’s Operation Feed Yourself aims to encourage the audience of CMG to produce their own food to reduce overdependence on foreign imports and attain national food self-reliance.

The initiative is supported by the Group’s eight other radio stations (Accra FM, No.1 FM, Kumasi FM, Adehyee FM, Sunyani FM, Dagbon FM, Ho FM and Taadi FM) and one TV station (CTV), across the country and would pep up Ghanaians to start backyard and smallholder farms so as to produce their own food, as a means of mitigating the current economic crisis that has caused the prices of food to skyrocket on the market.

Gen. Acheampong’s Operation Feed Yourself was an agricultural programme administered while he was the head of state.

It was started in February 1972 and remained until the end of his regime in 1978.

It aimed at self-sufficiency by increasing the volume and diversity of agriculture intended for domestic consumption in Ghana.

Leading the revived initiative by example, CMG has started its own farm under its newly created agriculture unit.

The new business enterprise is into full-time large-scale crop farming and animal husbandry.

CMG intends to use its farm to inspire and demonstrate to Ghanaians how a private organisation, through determination, can rally its own resources to produce enough food for self-sufficiency.

Source: Classfmonline.com/Emmanuel Mensah