Accra: St. Johns Grammar Senior High School from the Greater Accra region has emerged as the overall best SHS in the 2025 Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) School Farm Competition.
According to Ghana News Agency, the ‘Nana Joe Mensah Award’ is the flagship accolade in the KIC School Farm Competition, an agricultural initiative founded by the Blue Skies Foundation. This competition aims to change students’ perceptions of agriculture by providing practical, hands-on learning experiences. In partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the initiative supports participating schools with essential inputs such as seeds and basic farm tools to promote practical agricultural education.
Ms. Francisca Atubiga, head of the Agricultural Department at St. Johns Grammar, shared insights into their winning project. The school cultivated tomatoes on a 2,500 square meter plot for the competition. “More than 100 students in the department developed interest in the project and gained valuable insights into agriculture, even though the majority had little to no prior knowledge of it before,” she stated. Despite challenges like low rainfall and limited student participation in fieldwork, support from the KIC team and the school’s headmaster was pivotal to their success.
Looking ahead, Ms. Atubiga expressed plans to install a drip irrigation system to tackle climate variability and to train more students in agriculture through discipline and hard work. Master David Gbadago, a student leader of the project, explained that they dedicated weekends to watering the seeds and observing seedling germination, while also engaging in necessary farm practices.
Additionally, the school has started producing a tomato puree branded as ‘St. John’s Grammar organic tomato paste’ using undersized tomatoes not presentable to buyers. This initiative utilizes facilities from the Home Economics department. Gbadago described the KIC project as an invaluable exposure, emphasizing its role in providing practical lessons that surpass theoretical knowledge, thereby equipping students with essential skills for agricultural development.