Your article is interesting and you make some cogent arguments about helping the agricultural sector. You have also acknowledged some good government initiatives in that direction.
By all means the small farm-holder or sma ... read full comment
Your article is interesting and you make some cogent arguments about helping the agricultural sector. You have also acknowledged some good government initiatives in that direction.
By all means the small farm-holder or small scale farmer is important and may well be a major on tribute to national farm output. Here a my problems with your article: 1. You refer to 80% of small holders owning up to THREE ACRES of land. Don't you think this is too small to be significant? Perhaps this calls for farmers' cooperatives involving the 'merger' of farmsteads to make any extension support services and investments meaningful and value for money
2. More worryingly you say the majority of these farmers are OLD AND WEAK. How very sad that WE have to RELY on OLD AND FRAIL POOR 'subsistence farmers' who as you describe are illiterate and uneducated, to realise our Green Revolution. Pardon my ignorance as I am not a trained expert in agriculture. But as I understand from a friend who completed doctoral work examining problems in the agric sector in Ghana, one of his findings was that the children of the farmers did not "see their future in the land" and would rather leave the rural areas to "make it in the city".
So family farm holdings may be lost and land lie fallow as these old, weak, poor folks die out. Perhaps we need to start by promoting school based agriculture, make it fun and encourage young people to see agriculture and farming as a potential career, lucrative enough for a good livelihood. Promoting school based agriculture with the right investments will also help to provide the products to support the school feeding programme and income for local communities.
I believe there is scope for exploring these possibilities with some schools specialising in different aspects of agric including cereals, tubers, fisheries, animal husbandry, poultry etc. to allow for distribution among schools across the country. This is a debate I will be happy to contribute to and to help develop a national programme if needs be.
The Navrongo Model where in the 1970s under one Colin MacDonald Navrongo school became not only food self-sufficient but could sell some of its produce from grains to animal husbandry is one that can be replicated across Ghanaian schools. As far as one can tell, there are quite a number of people with experience of this model in BOTH MAJOR PARTIES - NPP AND CPP, some of them parliamentarians, ministers and former ministers.
Perhaps they could come together in a bipartisan way to develop the model and get the president and government to support it. Let's all hope that somebody is reading your opinion piece to take it serious. Since you as at KNUST, I am sure you can mobilise students to et involved in advocacy for agriculture including this model?
joseph - gijoepowers2006@yahoo.co.uk 11 years ago
Hello, Prince. First of all, Agro Mindset Organisation is an agric entrepreneurship campaigning organisation, engaged in a crusade to get more young, educated people engaged in agricultural production as a sustainable form of ... read full comment
Hello, Prince. First of all, Agro Mindset Organisation is an agric entrepreneurship campaigning organisation, engaged in a crusade to get more young, educated people engaged in agricultural production as a sustainable form of employment. The need for formation of coperative societies is something we have also been pursuing actively which if you read our letter to the president carefully, you would see we called for further efforts at facilitating. We are not asking that the green revolution is built using the weak and old small scale farmers. But by our vision and mission, we want the agric sector built on the young, educated agric producers. But what we are further saying is that, the small holder farmers should also be encouraged with targeted policies to help them expand their farms and further lift them up the economic ladder, because they constitute the majority, so they can all add up to to the efforts at making the country food secure. We are very much pursuing the school based agriculture idea which is why we have established our chapters on university campuses, which the KNUST Chapter is one, and we would be extending to other university campuses soon. We have have also been undertaking outreaches to various SHS and JHS to encourage them to get interested in the agric sector, and would soon roll out a plan to establish agric clubs in such schools. So we appear to be thinking exactly the way you are,and have been doing some of what you are asking for already. We are honoured to have you critique our open letter, and with the interest you have expressed, we look forward to holding further consultations with you on the we are doing. Thank you very much, Prince
princewilly@ymail.com 11 years ago
An old farmer had owned a large farm for many years. He had a huge man-made pond out back with a beautiful picnic area, For years it was the perfect place to unwind or hold a family get together. As the farmer grew older, his ... read full comment
An old farmer had owned a large farm for many years. He had a huge man-made pond out back with a beautiful picnic area, For years it was the perfect place to unwind or hold a family get together. As the farmer grew older, his "Oasis" was used less and less. It eventually became the local swimming hole and while his neighbors occasionally took advantage of the pond, he rarely made an appearance.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond. He hadn't been there in a while and felt the urge to pay a visit to check on things. As he neared the pond, he heard loud playful voices giggling and laughing. As he came closer he was astonished to see that a bunch of young women had decided to skinny dip in his pond.
He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end of the pond. One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!" The old man replied, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim,look at your naked bodies or make you get out of the pond naked. I'm here to feed the Crocodiles.
Your article is interesting and you make some cogent arguments about helping the agricultural sector. You have also acknowledged some good government initiatives in that direction.
By all means the small farm-holder or sma ...
read full comment
Hello, Prince. First of all, Agro Mindset Organisation is an agric entrepreneurship campaigning organisation, engaged in a crusade to get more young, educated people engaged in agricultural production as a sustainable form of ...
read full comment
An old farmer had owned a large farm for many years. He had a huge man-made pond out back with a beautiful picnic area, For years it was the perfect place to unwind or hold a family get together. As the farmer grew older, his ...
read full comment