The MTN Foundation as announced that it is piloting a programme on smart farming to create jobs and reduce unemployment among the youth.
The company believes that agriculture remained the backbone of their economy, and there was the need for farmers to improve upon their outputs.
Mrs. Adjoa Wiafe, Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer of MTN Ghana, who made the announcement at Takoradi when she addressed media practitioners and other stakeholders at the MTN’s 2025 media and stakeholder forum edition for the Western Region.
According to her, the Foundation in collaboration with the University of Ghana, the Faculty of Agriculture, have established a Vegetable Centre of Excellence, which included greenhouses, digital irrigation and solar power systems.
First, students would be introduced to the new and modern methods of growing crops, particularly vegetables, and opportunities would be made available to those who were not necessarily students at the school but had interest in agriculture, Mrs. Wiafe explained.
She said: “Currently we have about 50 students from the University that we are working with. The programme is also being piloted in Tamale, so we are in these two locations, and hope we will be able to spread it out.”
She said land was very scarce, and they had to find ways to use the available land strategically to maximize production.
” This is what we are doing in an environmentally friendly way, Mrs. Wiafe said.”
She added that the Foundation was optimistic about announcing a scale-up of the project soon.
The pilot phase of the programme would be concluded this year and reassessed to determine the next course of action, she emphasized.
Mr. Desmond Cudjoe, the Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Western Regional Chapter, recalled that MTN had previously brought in resource persons to train media practitioners in the region on utilising digital platforms, improving their writing, and storytelling.
He described the move as laudable and appealed to MTN to organise similar training programme for them to improve upon their skills as they were in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era.
Mr. Cudjoe on behalf of his colleagues expressed gratitude to MTN Ghana and hoped for a future engagement.
He also urged other corporate institutions to adopt similar practices.
