Comments on: Ghana should not import poultry, rice – Israeli Ambassador https://citifmonline.com/2016/09/ghana-should-not-import-poultry-rice-israeli-ambassador/ Ghana News | Ghana Politics | Ghana Soccer | Ghana Showbiz Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:52:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.8 By: Felix Riedel https://citifmonline.com/2016/09/ghana-should-not-import-poultry-rice-israeli-ambassador/#comment-2902 Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:52:00 +0000 http://citifmonline.com/?p=246842#comment-2902 In general the efforts of Israel in Africa are very laudable. While the
Honorable is true about import/export traps, he is totally wrong about
large scale farming. What will happen? A lot of small-scale farmers will
starve and the soil will impoverish and die. US-AID-projects in
northern Ghana leave naked soil to the horizon without a single tree for
shade. That is not proper agricultural knowledge.
Anybody knows that tropical soils are vulnerable to sun and have to be
protected by trees. Which is why in Northern Ghana successful Yam-farms
are paired with shea-nut-trees and mango-trees and cows while in the
south cocoa-farms and palmnut-farms and shifting cultivation are best
(still overusing land and burning away far too much).
Most farmers in the north own some two acres for entire families.

In Europe 400 years ago farmers were killed off and driven of the land
to create bigger farms and meadows for sheep. This is called “primitive
accumulation” for a reason, farmers were pushed into the cities where,
after many died, workforce became so cheap that industries profited.
Food was then imported from India where millions starved to death.

Pls. Ghanaians, study history and ecology before you adapt to wild
guesses of capitalist countries who don’t have a clue how to distribute
food and how to make their own farmers profit from it. In Germany the
numbers of farmers are dwindling while farms are growing larger and
larger and the excess harvest is burnt either in fuel or stuffed into
pigs and chicken exported to Ghana.
There is no easy way out of the
visious circle of rationalization and concentration and it won’t
benefit “everybody” for sure. One way would be not to hurry the cycle
and rather stay out of it where one can. Restore forests, protect soils
from erosion, grow guinea corn instead of maize, don’t sell fishing
properties to China and Europe.
Something that is a growing business
is Avocado hailed as a “wonder-fruit” by health experts. Shea,
Avocados, Pineapples and Pawpaws as well as cherimola grow well enough
in Ghana to be exported if distribution is organized better. It could
then stomach the rice imports. Ghana can’t beat Asian and US-American
rice even if it would flatten its countryside and subsidize heavily. It
is simply not feasible to make rice cheaper than that from Vietnam and
USA.

]]> By: Felix Riedel https://citifmonline.com/2016/09/ghana-should-not-import-poultry-rice-israeli-ambassador/#comment-3597 Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:52:00 +0000 http://citifmonline.com/?p=246842#comment-3597 In general the efforts of Israel in Africa are very laudable. While the
Honorable is true about import/export traps, he is totally wrong about
large scale farming. What will happen? A lot of small-scale farmers will
starve and the soil will impoverish and die. US-AID-projects in
northern Ghana leave naked soil to the horizon without a single tree for
shade. That is not proper agricultural knowledge.
Anybody knows that tropical soils are vulnerable to sun and have to be
protected by trees. Which is why in Northern Ghana successful Yam-farms
are paired with shea-nut-trees and mango-trees and cows while in the
south cocoa-farms and palmnut-farms and shifting cultivation are best
(still overusing land and burning away far too much).
Most farmers in the north own some two acres for entire families.

In Europe 400 years ago farmers were killed off and driven of the land
to create bigger farms and meadows for sheep. This is called “primitive
accumulation” for a reason, farmers were pushed into the cities where,
after many died, workforce became so cheap that industries profited.
Food was then imported from India where millions starved to death.

Pls. Ghanaians, study history and ecology before you adapt to wild
guesses of capitalist countries who don’t have a clue how to distribute
food and how to make their own farmers profit from it. In Germany the
numbers of farmers are dwindling while farms are growing larger and
larger and the excess harvest is burnt either in fuel or stuffed into
pigs and chicken exported to Ghana.
There is no easy way out of the
visious circle of rationalization and concentration and it won’t
benefit “everybody” for sure. One way would be not to hurry the cycle
and rather stay out of it where one can. Restore forests, protect soils
from erosion, grow guinea corn instead of maize, don’t sell fishing
properties to China and Europe.
Something that is a growing business
is Avocado hailed as a “wonder-fruit” by health experts. Shea,
Avocados, Pineapples and Pawpaws as well as cherimola grow well enough
in Ghana to be exported if distribution is organized better. It could
then stomach the rice imports. Ghana can’t beat Asian and US-American
rice even if it would flatten its countryside and subsidize heavily. It
is simply not feasible to make rice cheaper than that from Vietnam and
USA.

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