A banana plantation believed to be the first-ever in the Upper West Region in Ghana has been developed by Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region, Professor Domwini Dabire Kuupole.
A French scholar and academician, Prof. Kuupole, after handing over the position of Vice-Chancellor of Cape Coast in 2016 and with the support of friends, established the Kuupole Foundation with the aim of educating brilliant needy students with the emphasis on education, health and agriculture.
The plantation which sits on a seven acre land was first cultivated in 2013 at Ketuo about six kilometres from the Hamile international border post in the Nandom Municipality of the region. Prof.
Pay back to the society
The professor ventured into cultivation of banana in a region not known for the crop. The common crops and animals found in the region include maize, yam, groundnut, millet, soybeans, rice, vegetables, guinea fowls, cattle and ruminants. However, Kuupole’s foray into agriculture yielded fruit as the crops have been doing very well since they were planted and the produce is being sold out on the market by women, mostly widows.
He has also constructed a modern library stocked with 1,400 books of various subjects in 2019 at Nandom. According to the former VC, what he has done is not just to improve the nutritional supplements for the people, but also to pay back to the society where he grew up to become one of the scholars to attain the high standard of becoming a VC of UCC.
