EMPOWERING AGRO WORKFORCE IS KEY TO CONFRONTING CRISIS

As history has taught us, civilisation began with tending of crops and livestock, with crude mechanisation, including ploughing and processing, as later interventions in agriculture.

Together with weaving of cotton into clothing, agro processing or basic industrialisation was underway.

Even with the invention of iron ore and smith-work, which was also an initiative of our forefathers in basic industrialisation, the products were largely implements for farming and hunting game.

But those were ancient times, when the need for fertilisers and extension services were virtually non-existent because of the presence of massive and fertile and virgin vegetative zones, particularly in our part of the world and the Middle East.

Subsistence agriculture

In the past century, however, the need for the global community to interact through trade, and explore opportunities beyond one’s shores had generated further need to trade within and outside.

We found that under the Market Day phenomenon and cross-border trade, which existed between communities in the Ghana, Mali and Songhai kingdoms as, history students would affirm.

Unfortunately, because society wasn’t that sophisticated, farmers never had export or foreign exchange in mind, neither did they have ‘obligations’ that compelled them to save resources for educating kids or building mansions or enjoying holidays abroad like we have today.

So, the norm was to produce the cereals and vegetables or tend the cattle, goats and sheep, and send them to the market in exchange for salt and other items. With a barn in the compound or the farm, a family was secured until the minor rains, when farmers would go back and replant seedlings that had been nursed. And, the culture was the same for hunters and fishermen as well as other agricultural workers.

Joseph Project

But history also tells us that nations have inevitably gone through crisis such as we have today in the twin-scourge that COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukraine conflict have inflicted on us.

We also forget that in the biblical times, the saga of nations or individuals around going through famine was commonplace – with records of how they overcame or succumbed to the crisis.

That certainly calls for a new way of doing things – from land preparation through nursery of seedlings and tending of crop or the hoe and cutlass Neanderthal economic activity to digitalisation in the form of laboratory seeding, pests and weed control as well as end-product quality, grading, sorting, warehousing, marketing, processing and export.

Unfortunately, since the 70s, during which period the military bestrode our political space in Africa, calls to move away from subsistence farming have largely been ignored, though from Adam Smith through Paul Samuelson to Kwesi Botchwey and Osafo-Maafo, agriculture has been known to be the treasure of every nation.

True empowerment

Through the respective initiatives that government has put in place, and continues to do, at least, we managed to scoop a modest growth in agriculture from a negative the last time around.

We went beyond that by exporting cereals and vegetables to neighbouring countries, though we also import from them some four or five months in a year because of the huge vegetable consumption levels in Ghana.

It is in that light that the Daily Statesman agrees with the President that we must do more in empowering actors in the agriculture sector to be able to withstand future shocks.

Investment

That, in the opinion of the Daily Statesman, implies investment in relevant training and skills programmes, with focus on local production of inputs and effective management of resources that go into crop and livestock production or inland and marine fishing, among others.

This is very important, considering the fact that Russia, which is very strong in agriculture, after triggering the crazy conflict, has its soldiers fighting almost on empty stomach today.

As the President noted, confronting food security challenges not only helps improve lives and livelihoods, but also cushions us in times of crisis.