Farmers Day Should Be Changed To Agric Day'

Congratulations! Congratulations!! Congratulations!!! to all the farmers both crop and animal farmers in the country for their celebration towards the national development. Everyone in the country should to salute our dedicated, hard working, selfless, committed and patriotic farmers in the country because it can be said that without them human beings may not survival up to now.

A person and group of persons who had the dream about 26 years ago that there was the need to honour the country’s farmers deserve a commendation from every Ghanaian. The reason is that if not their dream much would have not been heard about the activities of farmers.

A programme which was instituted with the aim to honour cocoa farmers for their immense contribution towards the national development has turned to honour thousand of farmers in different categories throughout the country every first Friday of December. Through this awarding ceremony many farmers have been awarded with different items and prizes. Even as a result of that some have got complete houses and cars, to mention but few.

During the farmers’ day, some people think that it is only crop and livestock farmers who are been awarded but that is not the case these days. The awarding ceremony has become so important that some officials at the ministry of food and agriculture and the secondary industries in the agric field are also at awarded.

Some people like me have being reflected on the name that has been given to the celebration for a long period of time as ‘farmers’ day’. One question that comes into our mind is why is it that the day is not called agriculture day instead of farmers’ day.

To begin with, why the day should be changed to ‘National Agriculture Day’, let me take some time to talk about the Agric industry in Ghana and even in the else where. In a literally, the term agriculture which root word is from the Latin word- ager field+ cultura cultivation (17c) can be defined as the cultivation of the land in order to grow crops or raising livestock as a source of food or other useful products, example wool or cotton. That was the traditional way of defining agriculture but technology and modern thinking have added a lot to the definition to cover more areas.

In a modern way someone may define agriculture as the federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy). This definition was created in 1862 so there is no doubt that from that time to this period new definition might have come into been.

If one view agriculture as an industry, it can be put into three types, namely, primary industry (production), secondary industry (production) and tertiary industry(production).

Primary industries are those industries that are considered to produce mainly raw materials to feed the secondary (processing) industries. As the name of the award day stands, it looks as if the award was institute to award persons who produce raw materials in the agric industry since majority of the award winners I have ever seen were raw material producers but the truth is that producing of raw materials alone does not make the production chain complete.

Secondary industries are responsible for changing the raw materials that have been produced by the primary industries into finished good for human consumption. Example of such industries in the agric industry include all the factories which process raw orange, pineapple, banner and other fruits into can drinks. It is a fact that the amount of money the country gets from secondary products when exported are more than what it gets from primary products when also exported, so why is it wrong to honour the producers in the secondary industries. One can imagine the number of people, particularly the youth who will be employed if one agro secondary industry is opened.

Tertiary industries are industries which provide services and training to the economy. When we talk about this industry many people don’t consider agric industry to be under this industry but the truth is that agric industry is also under this industry in the sense that the agric officers for instants: agric extension officers, veterinary officers and others that you can mention in the ministry of food and agriculture in the country.

The surprising thing is that before the farmers are awarded those in the tertiary industry under the agric industry supervise and recommend them for the award so why not taking note of their immense contribution towards the development of agriculture in the country? It may be true that some of the staff of ministry of food and agriculture are awarded during the celebration and if it so why not changing the name from farmers day to Agric day to make the intention fully complete.

I hope that others may not agree with this proposal but if you have taken time to listen or read the various speeches which have been read since the advent of the celebration all the speeches focus on Agric sector or industry more than farmers.