Farmer organizations in the country are calling for total overhaul of the farmers’ day award prizes by using the occasion to establish more processing factories for farmers instead of the awards.
Agriculture is gradually losing its peak, unlike what pertained decades ago, and elsewhere on other continents. The awards ceremony organized yearly to honor hardworking and dedicated Ghanaian farmers has in recent past failed to live up to its billing given the nature of award packages which are offered to farmers.
It is in light of this and others that some farmer organizations are proposing for the award package reconsidered or scrap it for a more incentivised package.
Mr. Lawrence Botchwey, President of FAKA Cooperative Farmers Union of Ghana has for instance added his voice to this call and said ‘there is the need to review the packages given to farmers.’
Speaking Exclusive to gardjagh.org ahead of the 31st farmers day celebration slated to come off on the 4th December, 2015, at Bolgatanga, he asserted that, ‘the prizes are inadequate given the tedious nature of our work.’
He entreated the event organizers and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to make the subsequent ones more lucrative to attract the youth to venture into farming.
He said to achieve this objective, the Ministry should create an enabling environment for farmers to get ready market for their produce.
Mr. Botchwey was of the view that should MoFA heed their plea, post harvest losses among others will greatly be reduced.
“Should farmers have a lot of processing factories in the country, farming will be more lucrative than any venture capital.”
“Ready market for farmers produce should be our concern and focus,” he stated.
On the other hand, he bemoaned the situation where one pick-up will be allocated to the overall best farmer.
He lamented that, all these prizes, to a larger extent do not add any yield to the produce of farmers, hence stressed on the need to use the limited resources to construct more processing factories where all farmers could profit from.
