Land has been fundamental to human culture and economics throughout history. However, in the late 1700s the Industrial Revolution, starting in the United Kingdom, brought profound changes. Previously, the majority of people lived directly off the land as farmers. The growing mechanisation of agriculture cut numbers of agricultural workers needed, who were then available to work in the new large scale industries that had started to develop. Over time, this brought sustained increases in economic productivity and hence economic growth, albeit unfortunately with much social injustice and hardship for many ordinary workers at the time. As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the United Kingdom is perhaps the country that has shifted furthest psychologically from the agrarian based economy that was once foundational to every country.
This may help account for one consequence of the intertwining of British and Ghanaian history through colonisation, a modern perception of farming as somehow marginal here in Ghana, as is largely the perception in the UK. Whilst there is some factual basis for this in the UK, where less than 2% of workers are in agriculture, it is clearly wrong in Ghana where 34% of the population work in agriculture. Yet the statistics for Ghana show a rapidly falling proportion of workers in agriculture, from 50% just a decade ago, so we are on a similar trajectory.
This ongoing shift of workers out of agriculture, in Ghana and many other developing countries, fits with the general pattern of economic development over the last two centuries. Yet, to be truly economically positive, this shift needs to be accompanied by two things: increasing productivity in agriculture, so overall food production is maintained or increased despite fewer workers; and job-generation elsewhere in the economy, so workers leaving farming go into other productive pursuits, not simply unemployment or underemployment. It is therefore concerning that Ghana’s performance against these criteria is patchy.
I attended the recent National Farmers Day celebrations in Ho. Farmers Day’s aim of raising the profile and attractiveness of farming (and fishing) in Ghana, and to counter negative perceptions that farming is an outmoded career choice, is worthy. The current prizes for winning farmers of trucks and tractors are appropriate symbols of the need to encourage mechanisation and increased productivity in our agriculture. They may also help in shifting perceptions away from farming being just about being stuck doing back breaking toil all day in the sun with a hoe in one’s hand, whilst more fortunate people lounge in air-conditioned offices and cars.
However, there is a broader need, to shift a perception (based in the history of the Industrial Revolution) that farming is a symbol of our lack of development, and that we would rather have Ghanaians working in “more advanced” sectors of industry or services. Yes, there will be fewer people working in agriculture in the future, but we need to understand how in modern times, farming can rather be the key driver of our economic development.
The Ghana government’s efforts include promoting agro-processing with its One District One Factory programme could be a positive policy if well delivered. And government’s Planting for Food and Jobs programme claims more rapid success, including a doubling of Ghana’s maize output per hectare in just two years. If correct, this is a huge achievement by Ghanaian farmers, with government help, that indeed deserves celebration.
However, my Farmers Day trip to Ho left me with some questions.
Firstly, about the Day itself. I find it a little odd for Farmers Day to be yet another of our numerous statutory holidays, when most farmers will continue to work through the day, and it will mainly be office and government workers who get time off. More importantly, when our biggest economic challenge is making our agriculture and other parts of our economy more productive, statutory days off tend to de-emphasise the imperative of increasing productivity.
And I also have some policy questions.
Do we favour maintaining our high proportion of small holder farmers, or rather consolidation to larger farms which may be better able to afford the necessary capital investment for efficient modern farming?
In principle, farmer cooperatives can be a way of giving smallholder farmers access to capital intensive farming aids, but these have proved difficult to implement successfully in Ghana at scale, hampered by our usual difficulties of low trust and in making and enforcing clear agreements. A more promising approach is the development of business based solutions which give access to facilities such as tractors, improved seed, irrigation systems, training and even land on a commercial basis, but farmers will need better access to credit facilities if this market orientated approach is to reach its potential.
And what about the fundamental issue of ensuring more reliable routes to market for farmers, without which much of the benefit of increasing productivity will lost in rotting food piles at the farm?
Big improvements in feeder roads, food storage facilities, and market information and linkages for farmers are urgently needed alongside continuing productivity gains, if we are to make our agriculture the development success story it should be. There is a long way to go on all this.
So Farmers Day, as a government sponsored celebration of the importance of farmers and is a good thing, though I would argue it would be better for it not to be a statutory holiday.
But it is the new breed of farmer I meet more and more often these days in Ghana, who give me the most hope for our agricultural future.
These are generally educated people with business (though not necessarily farming) experience, who understand that farming needs to be approached as a business to be successful in the modern world. They start by identifying markets and buyers rather than simply asking what they can most easily produce. They are keen to work in partnership with other farmers, market makers, researchers and so on. They are fully aware of new opportunities and challenges such as the increasing popularity of previously little-known crops such as moringa, or organic farming methods that can open up export markets and improve our health and soils, and they are willing to experiment with innovative approaches.
For example, when I was honoured to meet last year’s national best farmer, I was struck to learn he had been working as a farmer for a relatively short period, having moved from a career in other businesses, and yet he had been able to achieve great success in farming over this short period.
So Ayeeko! indeed to all our farmers. But let’s also encourage our youth to think not so much of becoming farmers, as of becoming successful agri-business entrepreneurs working in all parts of the agricultural value chain. That will help them maximise their own economic welfare, and also that of Ghana.