Agriculture Minister closes AGRIFEX

Accra, Nov. 17 GNA - The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is to initiate a policy to ensure that second cycle institutions serve students with local rations containing the right proportion of nutrients. This will maintain the health of the students, improve mental alertness and also develop their Intelligent Quotient (IQ) for sound academic work to provide the country's manpower.

Major Courage Quashigah, Minister of Agriculture, who was addressing the closing ceremony of this year's AGRIFEX said most students in the country's institutions are physically weak, resulting in poor health and academic records.

He said students refuse to eat the normal diet their parents pay for during the academic year, but rather buy food of poor nutritional value from vendors.

" The Ministry will pursue a deliberate policy that will ensure that students eat good food and relieve parents from spending huge chunk of money to buy additional provisions for their wards," he said.

Maj. Quashigah noted that the exercise, when successful would result in greater demand for local agricultural produce and create job in the sector. The Minister said, elsewhere in the World, it had been a compulsory policy for institutions to feed students with local rations, adding that it had greatly contributed to building strong human resource base.

Exhibitors, Ghana News Agency spoke to, said the exhibition was fairly good, but however, complained of inadequate publicity.

The foreign participants, who made their debut appearance at the fair said it was in the right direction and called for future improvement and broad base external involvement for greater investment avenue.

The fair showcased processed and packaged Ghanaian rich agricultural