33rd Farmer's Day celebration in Kpandai District 'Farming for Food and Jobs'

On the first Friday of December every year, farmers who excel in their respective fields are awarded prizes such as a Motors, Knapsack Sprayers, farm implements, certificates and other prizes. Prizes are awarded to deserving farmers in order of best pract

The District Farmers' Day being held in Bankamba in the Ekumdipe Zone, Kpandai District, the 33rd edition of farmers day celebration, crowns best farmers in Kpandai District at Bankamba Junior High School near the town park.

The theme for this year’s celebration is ‘Agriculture: Farming for food and jobs’

Farmers’ Day” was instituted by the Government in 1985 in recognition of the vital role of farmers and fishers play in the economy especially the highly commendable output of farmers and fishermen in 1984, (about 30% growth), after the bad agricultural years of 1982 and 1983. The day is celebrated to motivate them to produce more.

The first National Farmers’ Day was celebrated on Friday, December 1986, at Osino in the Eastern Region.

The package to the first best farmer was made up of two Machetes, a pair of Wellington boots and a preset radio. Ever since the value of the awards has improved from year to year, moving from bicycle to power tillers to tractors, to pick-ups and presently to a 3-bedroom house since 2002.

For the 33rd year running, government is set to honour several farmers whose work contributes 21% to Ghana's Gross Domestic Product.

Since 1988, the first Friday of every December was set aside by the government as Farmers' Day, celebrated as a statutory Public Holiday.

Speaking at the celebration, the District Agric Director, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Adam said, adding to the efforts of previous governments, the Akufo-Addo government has said it has big plans for the sector.

It wants to encourage farming through the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, a $140million plan to help farmers with seeds, fertilisers, extension services and marketing.

Using an initial investment of ¢456.3 million, the government also wants to encourage processing of farm products through an industrialisation policy of setting up a factory in each of the 216 districts.

These initiatives, the government believes, can change the narrative around agriculture and unlock great interest amongst the youth.

The Director, said to eradicate poverty then it will require 'sustainal adversal investment' with increase in investment it will lead to increase with Agriculture production and productivity that can generate foreign exchange to create employment and considerable improve full security in this country, however let me quickly acknowledge that the sector is the devil with alot of challenges including eratic rainfall distribution, inadequate and poor mechanize farming, no use of updates of farming technologies, use of low yielding and crop varieties, inadequate of agriculture credits, high abuse of agro-chemicals, insufficient agricultural technical office's, high post harvest losses, indiscriminate bush fires. They results of this are overwhelming, we end up losing our agricultural produce because we are unable to manage harvest properly.

He described farming in the District in recent times as a success story while calling on the youth to venture into farming instead of migrating to the cities for nonexistent jobs.

I want to use this platform to advise them that agricultural had made several contributions to the economic progress of advance country and it's role on economic development of less developed issues like Ghana, Kpandai is not an exception, this is because they is youth potential for the developmental order of the District. This is our previelage because the District have being selected for a Regional award in Kumasi, and one Madam Adjoa Olivia Friko from Ketiejeli and Kwasi Bitimigma has also being picked to exhibit yaw at the Kumasi Sports Stadium, their both in Kumasi to celebrate with His Excellence Nana Akufo-Addo.

He added this year the District experience another outbreak of "warm arming worm" and most expecially it affected maize production, Government sent some chemicals for distribution to farmers and accordingly my staff and we're at the field to dispense the chemicals and provide assistance to the farmers to fight the bernials yet stil the situation was gone under control, however he encouraged all farmers to be concerned about this menace as they warm adopt it's self they wide variety of wheather condition. He did encouraged all the town council and unite committee's to be alert and report according to his office next time it happens.

He added the wheather experience this year has being exceptional, expecially compared to that of last year, the District experience heavy rains in the month of June and July, where most cereal farmers were either planting or maintaining other farm practises. This rendered most farms into rill or gully erosion in serious instances floods, later in the season around October when mix crops needed adequate moisture to complete it's life cycle then the rain ceases for almost three weeks, "however let's not panic this is an indication from the provisional food balance chain".

The Director said "the District had a lot of fertile suitable soil for the transformation of the agricultural sector, adding that out of the total cultivatable land area of about 1 million hectares, 1.8 million had been cultivated and that the remaining cultivatable land area could be cultivated to increase the country’s Gross Domestic Growth".

Alhaji expressed gratitude to Tizza Bank and other stakeholders as their major traditional donors since the inception of the District Farmers Day celebrations.

He therefore called on farmers to take advantage of the availability of land in the District and adopt the shifting cultivation system to improve production.

Hon Mathew Nyindam MP for Kpandai, disclosed that government was providing a framework and institutional basis for a long-term engagement and supplementary financing for scaling up investment in the private sector-led pro-poor agricultural value chain development. Hon Mathew underscored the importance of Agriculture to the economic development of the country, "with the Agricultural sector currently employing about 44.7 per cent of the total workforce in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy— according to the Ghana Living Standards Survey six, 2014".

He noted that agricultural investment was one of the most important and effective strategies for economic growth and poverty reduction in the rural areas where the majority of the world’s poor lived. Most youth sees farming to be slavery, farming is not all about going to farm to harvest your produce to feed your family. There is a modernize way of farming.

He concluded, Ghana's economic potential is best measured in agriculture, experts say. "But it is taking government a challenging time to convince graduates that a farm, is more rewarding than a white collar job".

Hon Tatablata, District Chief Executive for Kpandai District, noted that a nation without abundance of agriculture products could not feed itself, let alone have surplus to feed its agriculture-based industries to contribute optimally to Gross Domestic Product.

He added, the Government’s focus with respect to modernizing agriculture and creating jobs has not changed and it includes the following:

Improve upon the country’s basic agricultural and unemployment rate, especially the irrigation systems, rural road network, storage and warehousing support farming. Hon Tatablata, said economic transformation through increased agricultural production required a sustainable increase in the level of investment in Agriculture.

He however talked about the District intention of putting up a 'new yaw market' at an advantage point within the District that will help the farmers within the locality to subsidies their cost, which will also create jobs for the youth and also bring more investors in the District. Most at times farmers travel all the way to Accra to sell their end products but return home within a penny, it's so pathetic.

He indicated that government was implementing policies aimed at creating the enabling environment for investors to invest in the sector. He therefore, urged the youth to take advantage of the business opportunities in farming to contribute more to the country’s development growth agenda.

The preceding member who chaired the occasion, in his remarks said a hungry nation could not develop, neither could there be peace and security for its population to channel its energies, creativity and time into useful ventures.

For these reasons, he said, there was the need for accelerated investment in agriculture to transform the economy of the country and pledged the support of the District.

Hon. Manni, therefore urged the private sector to invest in the agricultural sector.

Some 9 individuals including a physically challenged person were presented with awards. They got bicycles, tricycle, farm implements, certificates , motors and other prizes. With Mr. Bindon from Bimborido going away with the ultimate best District Farmer of the year.

With support from these awards, the gallant farmers and fishers are determined to learn lessons from the past, improve upon their performance to enable them facilitate the growth and development of the agricultural and fisheries sectors and contributed their quota to Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The ultimate winner for 2017, 33rd Farmer's Day celebration in Kpandai District