Let’s attach more seriousness to our agriculture

Agriculture has often been touted as the mainstay of the economy, yet it is one of the sectors that have been taken for granted for many years.

The sector is now lagging behind the services and the industrial sectors, although agriculture is supposed to be the key driver of the economy.

Indeed, a major chunk of the population is engaged in agriculture, but they do not make many returns because investments are rather very low, while it is the bulk of the people at the bottom of the social ladder who engage in various forms of agricultural ventures.

Economists explain that that is why agriculture is not doing very well in the country, although Ghana is not in the bracket of countries that are hungry.

Over the years, government policies on agriculture have not helped very much, while policies that gave birth to the Ghana Food Distribution Corporation, the building of irrigation dams and silos and the keeping of backyard gardens — as was the case with the Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) programme of the Acheampong government in the 1970s — have all been discarded.

To make matters worse, Ghanaian farmers still practise rain-fed agriculture and largely do subsistence or peasant farming, depending on rudimentary implements such as hoes and machetes.

Farming has, therefore, not been made attractive to the youth who continue to migrate to the urban centres in search of non-existent white-collar jobs while the farming population continues to age.

Fortunately, in Ghana, much of the land is very fertile and so there is almost always a glut when the rains are good and farmers grow staples and other desired crops such as cassava, plantain, yam, tomatoes, other vegetables, as well as watermelon and other fruits that grow very well in our climate.

But we risk experiencing again the drought of 1983 if we do not properly structure agricultural infrastructure and continue to depend on the magnanimity of nature to survive as a country. 

That is why the Daily Graphic views the pledge by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the 68th New Year School last Monday to modernise agriculture in the next four years as welcome news, indeed.

There is so much inefficiency in agricultural production, which accounts for the post-harvest losses experienced by farmers each year.

That is why we laud the government’s plan to modernise the sector through value addition, storage and enhanced marketing facilities that will generate job opportunities in the areas of storage, processing, packaging and marketing of agricultural produce to ensure higher incomes for farmers and fisherfolk.

The plan is also to improve food production efficiency and achieve food security, pursue a value-addition strategy aimed at rapidly improving agro-processing and developing new and stable markets for the country’s agricultural produce.

The Daily Graphic believes that if the government religiously pursues its plan of revitalising the agricultural sector, it will serve as the bedrock of sustainable development for the expansion and transformation of the national economy.

It will also ensure the curtailment of waste in the sector, prevent any hunger catastrophe, guarantee food sufficiency and surplus that can be exported to other countries all-year round and also provide sustainable employment for the teeming unemployed youth.