Teach agriculture in schools

The assistant secretary-elect of the Salala Agriculture Workers Union or SAWU Amos Tamba Kennie, has emphasized the need for agriculture to be taught in schools across the country with practical applications.

“This agriculture issue must be taught in schools with practical application. It will work in solving the problem”, he said recently in an exclusive interview with The NewDawnin Weala, Margibi County. According to him, agriculture has not been taught with practical application to students and that many Liberians have not gripped the knowledge that agriculture is paramount to the survival of Liberia.

Kennie attributed Liberians’ lack of interest in agriculture to the Seal of Liberia not being taught in schools.  He said if a school is populated with approximately 2,000 students, it should cultivate about four to five acres, planting groundnuts to increase its income generation, adding the students would not easily think about buying ground pea.

Kennie, who chairs the Board of the Salala Agriculture Workers Union Radio (SAWU FM: 104.2MHz) in Weala, Margibi County, noted the issue of agriculture has become a mere lip service here. “If you look at the Ministry of Agriculture today, there is one vehicle passing around with ‘End hunger.’ End hunger should be at Whon Town, should be in Lofa, Gbarpolu on the farm. Someone graduates with a BSc degree in agriculture, and instead of the guard controlling 15 acres swampland, he’s sitting at the Ministry of Agriculture. What interest is he going to have on the development of food”, he asked.

By Ramsey N. Singbeh, Jr. in Margibi-Edited by Jonathan Browne