The Assin Central Member of Parliament and astute businessman, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong has asserted that for someone to go into farming and succeed the person should be supported in a form of subsidy.
He made a scenario that farmers in advanced countries are being supported in a form of subsidy. “Farmers in the advanced countries are given subsidies, here they do not and if a farmer does not get a subsidy, it will be not easy for the farmer to succeed”, he said.
According to the Ghanaian politician and the businessman, if the government wants the youth to venture into agriculture, the first thing that must be done is to provide subsidies in a form of inputs but if the government does not provide subsidies to the youth who want to venture into agriculture with subsidies then the policies that the government want to implement in the agricultural sector cannot be achieved.
Talking out of the experience, the Hon. emphasized that if anyone wants to be financially deficient in life then the person should go into farming. To buttress his point with evidence, he said the mindsets of the people simply tell that they are not ready to work.
Bitterly complaining, he said they cultivated on 500 acres of land at Dida, Afrancho, Yabi, and Kokoben all in the Ashanti Region and even having fishpond that exceeds 500km stretch but all have been abandoned. Moreover, he cultivated 598 acres of rice farm in his constituency, and up to date the rice miller machine is there abandoned. The saddest of all, according to him is that the orange juice factory that was set up in his constituency is also let to get rotten. All these give credence that the youth are not ready to work.
He advised the youth who want to venture into agriculture especially the graduates to dedicate all their time and energy on the field every day, every time because the kind of people that are in the farming communities have the mindset that the farmer is ‘stupid’ for bringing job to the community.
He decried that never should any youth think of leaving the city to the village to farm with the intent of becoming rich, rather the person will be poor because the conditions would not favor the individual to farm and gain what he or she wants to gain.
