The Blue Skies Foundation has announced the winners of its inaugural School Farm of the Year Competition. The Blue Skies Foundation has announced the winners of its inaugural School Farm of the Year Competition at an Awards Ceremony held at the Blue Skies factory on the 3rd December, the day before Farmer’s Day in Ghana. The ceremony was attended by over four hundred students and teachers along with farmers, staff and management of Blue Skies, representatives of the Foundation Board and special guests including Founder and Chairman of Blue Skies, Anthony Pile, Hon. Kojo Adu Asare and the Honourable Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Minister of State.
The Blue Skies School Farm of the Year competition was launched as a pilot project in March this year to raise the profile of agriculture and encourage more young people to consider farming as a career. The initiative was introduced to help reverse the country’s decline in agriculture as part of Blue Skies strategy to secure long-term fruit supply and sustain the company’s ‘value adding’ operations in Ghana, which currently employ over three thousand people.
Blue Skies Founder and Chairman, Anthony Pile, said in his address to the participants “we are still alive and we are very pleased to be alive, but if we don’t have any farmers, and we don’t have any fruit then we don’t have any business, and we won’t be able to employ the three thousand people that we are employing today… so please everybody, get behind agriculture, get behind the youngsters, and let’s go!”
Twelve schools competed in the 2015 School Farm of the Year competition. First prize in the Senior Category was awarded to Manya Krobo SHS. First prize in the Junior Category was awarded to Anoff Basic School. The full results are as follows:
Senior Category
• First Prize – Manya Krobo SHS
• 1st runner-up – Yilo Krobo SHS
• 2nd runner-up – Osudoku SHS
Junior Category
• First Prize – Anoff Basic School
• 1st runner-up – Domponiase Basic School
• 2nd runner-up – Kofi Sah Basic School
Special Awards
• Most Innovative School – Osudoku Senior High School
• Leadership and Commitment Award – Christian High School
• Best Female Student Farmer – Miss Judith Ama Ninson, Manya Krobo SHS
• Best Male Student Farmer – Mr Frank Agbese, Anoff Basic School
• Best School Farm Teacher of the Year -Mr Ayittey Rueben Quarshie, Anoff Basic School