The question of who should be the best farmer still lingers in the minds of the individuals in the country.
Who is supposed to be the best farmer at a farmers’ day? Is it a wealthy person who has entered into farming to acquire more wealth or a subsistence/smallholder farmer who lives on the farm produce?
Farmers Day is a day celebrated to award the deserving and hardworking farmers who have made a significant contribution to the agricultural value chain. But the selection of the awardees has skeptically questioned the potency of who the best farmer should be.
This year’s farmer’s day organized by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture was on the theme: “Enhancing Small Scale Agriculture towards Agribusiness Development” to encourage and recognize the smallholder farmers who have sustained Ghana’s agriculture till the tenure of Agribusiness. The big question is, is the best farmer a smallholder farmer?
At the 2019 farmers’ day, AgricToday made a survey in some parts of the country to access who the best farmer should be. The response from our correspondence indicates that the true and deserving farmers are not those that are been awarded.
Some suggested that although a farmer is someone who engages in Agricultural activities whether actively or inactively, the best farmer is someone whose means of living is based on, ongoing farm activities to the extent that, the person might sometimes go to bed with an empty stomach.
Some bemoaned that upon their effort and challenges that they go through before production, they are sidelined because they are smallholder farmers.
According to the farmers at Ahafo Region, they did not celebrate the farmers’ day because they felt neglected and cheated since the smallholder farmers who produce to feed Ghanaian markets are not awarded. They described farmers’ day as biased and waste of resources because the winner is not the true reflection of a true Ghanaian farmer.
The general question is who is the best farmer?
