Ghanaians have been urged to develop an interest in home gardening as an additional sustainable business that can make them extra income.
The Managing Director for Urban Jungle, Selorm Agudu while speaking during the on-air series of the Citi Business Festival said urban or home gardening has the potential of becoming a major source of income for individuals and households if one is dedicated to it.
“It is very easy for this to become a second sustainable source of income for anybody if you are dedicated,” he said.
He added that once the quality of the produce of home garden is established, they can be commercialized.
“The way we look at urban gardening, if you do it and think about it in terms of intensive cultivation, you start to realize that in a very little space, you can command yields that quickly overwhelm what you can eat at home and once you are growing something that is healthy enough to put on your table and your neighbours are interested in it, it is very easy for that to become a business,” he added.
Selorm Agudu said there is a huge market and high demand for agricultural produce and so it will not be a challenge to sell the harvests for financial returns.
He said organizations such as his, Urban Jungle, which has been advocating for urban gardening and operates open fields and green houses in the country, buys from local farmers and supplies to supermarkets such as Melcom.
The concept of urban gardening is gradually picking up in Ghana, with a major campaign to make it a mainstay in urban areas in the country.
The concept is to promote farming even where there is very little space, at least for subsistence.
“A lot of us have a lot of concrete in our homes but whatever space you have in your backyard, get some of these plastic bottles, have them and put them in whatever soil and get some seeds,” he advocated, adding that crops such as maize and tomatoes can be used as starters into urban gardening.
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The Festival, which started on June 1, 2021, will end at the end of the month.
The Citi Business Festival is an extensive program of business events and on-air activities providing inspiration, business ideas, and information to persons who are starting, building, or growing their businesses.
