National Farmers Day Celebration, The Way Forward

Since 1985, the first Friday in December of every year has been set aside to honour the nation's farmers and fishermen; and in the case of this year, the occasion coincided with the world AIDS day. We should analyze critically as we celebrate the national farmers and fishermen day year after year if indeed as a country, we are creating the right environment for our farmers? The best reward for our farmers in my view is to create the necessary condition which will make agriculture a "safe heaven" so that farmers can make enough money to buy everything they want to improve upon their living conditions.

Firstly, many farmers find it difficult to market their produce due to the influx of imported commodities into the country. A typical commodity that continues to enjoy massive import as compared to the locally produced ones is rice. The simple reason has been that, the imported rice is less costly as compared to locally produced ones. This has been attributed to the fact that in the advanced countries, their system of agriculture is modernized, capital intensive and enjoys economies of scale. I advice that an enabling environment is created for our farmers to enhance their competitiveness on the market.

Government is doing a lot in the construction of roads linking farming areas. I have heard that part of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) cash is to be used to develop the Mallam-Achimota-Tetteh-Quarshie Highway to facilitate the transportation of export crops to the port. I still believe government can do more to construct feeder roads linking farming areas to facilitate mobility to market.

The country should also consider addressing the problem of land acquisition and the provision of irrigation facilities to farmers. This is why I agree with the President when he commented that his government is not interested in the establishment of "state farms" but is assisting in securing for the beneficiary farmer long-tenured title to land; reasonable soft long-term credit for both investment and working capital; requisite mechanization and irrigation.

The theme for this year's farmer's day celebration is (was) 'The Youth Employment Program: an Avenue for Sustaining Agricultural Development'. Government has provided a number of initiatives to attract the Youth of this country into agriculture. Mention can be made of the venture capital fund and the Micro-credit and small loans scheme. Whiles we make efforts to draw the Youth into agriculture, we should likewise help to sustain them into it. We should create a favorable market where they can sell their produce and provide storage facilities to preserve the unsold commodities. The government should also help to upgrade the environment in which they live and work. The upgrading of the rural areas will help to curb the rural-urban migration and will again attract the Youth in those areas into agriculture.

We should also take into consideration the caution giving by His Excellency John Agyekum Kufour on HIV AIDS at this years farmers day on the dangers ahead of us, as a country; 'What shall it profit us if we gained the whole world but still lost out' meaning, we may gain all the wealth of this world but may not be able to enjoy it to the fullness if one is afflicted by the HIV pandemic.

As we honour our farmers and fishermen during this national holiday, I advice that similar awards be organized to honour other professionals like Nurses, Doctors, etc to encourage them to work hard to increase productivity.

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