The Krobo Girls Senior High School at Odumasi Krobo in the Eastern Region has harvested 45 maxi bags of maize from the school farm to support its food stock.
The crop was cultivated solely by students of the school as management took advantage of the planting season this year to venture into the planting of maize to augment the government’s food supplies to the institution.
Although the school does not offer agriculture as a programme, its decision to utilise its land to plant maize has made some significant gains for the school.
During the harvesting of crop recently, the entirely girls school was able to harvest 45 maxi bags of maize from its farm to support its food stock.
Following the success of the maize project, the management of the school, led by the headmistress of the school, Bernice Noel Mensah-Akutteh, said the institution had been buoyed and motivated to continue with the initiative, adding that but for thieves as the school was not fully walled, over 50 bags would have been realised.
She said the entire work on the farm was done by the girls, especially those who were passionate about farming who volunteered and a few staff members who supported.
“It's just the girls. That is the girls and the little they can do and a few of the staff members of the school,” she emphasised.
Mrs Akutteh indicated that when she assumed duty as head of the school three years ago, she saw the need to make use of land to plant some crops to augment the support from government to feed the students.
The place, she said although was mountainous and rocky, some persons had apportioned it to themselves and were doing their own thing on it “so I told them they could not do that and that we are going to start a school farm to plant crops like maize”.
Supplies
That, she said, was especially when government supplies delayed.
“In fact, the first year we started the rain did not help us and so the maize planting did not do well. But we did pepper also which came out well.
“The second year we did it again, the rain stopped along the way and so we got a few bags.
But this year the rain has really helped,” she said.
Mrs Akutteh explained that after a committee was formed, the school got people to clear the land and then began the planting.
“We are so happy. We did not get people from outside to come and help us, it is just the girls and staff who are not more than five who supported,” she said.
She, therefore, appealed for support to institutionalise the initiative and inculcate in the students the spirit of subsistence farming.
The support, Mrs Akutteh said included insecticides to spray the farm to ward off army worms and other insects.
Asked how the work was done, she said it was done after classes had ended.
“Fridays, we close a bit early, that is around 3 p.m., and after they have rested a little, they go and do some one hour.
That’s how we have been able to do it,” she said.
Aside the planting, she said it was the girls that removed the grains from the cobs, among other things.
Revenue
She agreed with this reporter that the yields generated would help save the school some revenue, adding that “if at the time it came we were procuring maize, we would have gotten some so that we use the internally-generated fund to do other things”
However, she said the school would use some of the maize, advertise for staff members and a few of the stakeholders who would want to buy and “then the IGF that would be raised would be used for other things such as repair works”
“Of course the students would also enjoy their maize,” she said.
The board of the school, she said led by Samuel Ofori-Adjei, a former Headmaster of Accra Academy and former President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools, was duly informed of the farm project before management began it.
Mrs Akutteh said the challenge the school faced had to do with the purchase of seedlings, spraying machines and weedicides, and so she welcomed support in those areas.
Going forward, she said the school would need equipment for spraying, insecticides to ward off insects, seedlings as well as overcoats, boots and gloves for the students.
Access to water, she said, was also a problem, and as such organisations which could help could come on board to support in that direction.
“I think that moving forward everybody must get on board to do more,” she said.
In all of that, she said the authorities of the school were mindful of the their objective of providing quality education to the children.
The Krobo Girls' Senior High School, located at Odumasi Krobo in the Eastern Region, was founded in March 1927 by Scottish missionaries, as a middle school for girls.
