“… so, this Christmas, “as you dey bamba, as you dey chill with the big boys, know that all this was made possible by the birth of Jesus Christ, and our Farmers too!”
a concerned farmer
It’s Christmas! I bet the chickens and goats are not as excited as you are in this yuletide. A million of their comrades fell during the Easter, more will fall during the Christmas festivities and guess what, there’s a New Year celebration too.
This really isn’t a good time to be a chicken or a goat (here comes the Messi and Ronaldo debate again) or turkey or whatever you slaughter for Christmas.
Did you know in the US more than 46 million turkeys are killed each year at Thanksgiving alone, and more than 22 million die at Christmas?
Do you know how many chickens are slaughtered in Ghana during the Christmas and New Year Celebrations? Can you imagine Christmas without chicken or rice or cabin biscuits? Guess who makes all this possible? Our Farmers!
The 2021 Global Agricultural Year has been an eventful one with happenings spanning across various countries and sectors. Ghana recorded the highest tonnage of cocoa ever produced since the start of cocoa production, the Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) happened in Glasgow and saw countries make major commitments towards a greener and more sustainable world, the Africa Singapore Business Forum, and …
What other significant events do you remember from the 2021 agricultural year? Let us know in the comment section.
In this post, we highlight the importance of agriculture and farmers in our everyday lives and especially during Christmas.
The Role of the Farmer
“The agricultural subsector emerged a major contributor to non-traditional earnings (NTEs) in 2020, accounting for more than 15% of total earnings this year”
Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA)
The role of the everyday farmer cannot be overlooked.
A farmer is anyone who grows food for consumption: From the elite commercial farmers farming millions of hectares of lands to the small holder farming some acres to you our backyard farmer who is thrilled about agriculture and wants to experiment with it:, you make the world tick.
It has been the primary source of employment, livelihood and food security for a lot of people across the globe and it’s not surprising that in 2019 it contributed about 20% to Ghana’s GDP and accounts for 45.38 % of the total workforce in Ghana according to the Ghana Statistical Service.
“Agriculture is an important contributor to Ghana’s export earnings and a major source of inputs for the manufacturing sector”.
Henry Kerali, World Bank Country Director, Ghana.
The New Farmer
Ghana as a nation is gearing towards an agricultural revolution that embraces technologies long known to be foreign to us.
Change that affects agriculture and agribusiness in terms of technology where we see the use of modern satellite knowledge and blockchain technology in farming, green house technology being applied rampantly, agricultural financing where concepts like crowd funding are making waves, remote farming, improved agricultural marketing with the influx of many young and talented individuals into the space, Green agriculture with the onslaught of climate smart farming and value addition and many others. The list goes on.
The new Ghanaian farmer is modern and encompasses all the processes and stages involved with food from production till the food gets to the final consumer.
The bare truth is that it will take a lot of support in finances, policies and systems across all facets of agriculture be it agronomy, business, trade, marketing, financing and the many others to truly keep for the long term all the youth that are venturing into the space.
There is a lot of work to do for the agricultural and general economic growth of the country and we will need a lot more than boxing “fists” and the exchange of punches in our parliaments to achieve that.
Whatever you eat in this season someone farmed and so this Christmas, “as you dey bamba. As you dey chill with the big boys”, know that all this was made possible by the birth of Jesus Christ, and our farmers too!
Afehyia Pa!