Since the inception of the national farmers’ day almost three decades ago, we have seen awards and praises given to farmers who have worked hard to ensure that our homes have food for everyone.
This annual celebration has rewarded farmers at the district, regional and national levels in almost every aspect of agriculture and food production.
While we celebrate the 2015 edition, let us take time to reflect on how we can take food production forward by bringing together all of the stakeholders around a set of urgent issues.
As a worker for the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) of TUC Ghana, I had the opportunity of recently visiting the Asutuare irrigation project, the biggest irrigation project under the Ghana Irrigation Scheme (GIS).
The co-operative of about 3,500 members falls under the Rice Farmers Division of GAWU. While talking to these men and women, it became evident that some of the issues they were pointing out need urgent attention from all stakeholders in rice production.
One key aspect concerns the push for local rice consumption, which must be encouraged at all levels. Such an effort not only increases the income of smallholder rice producers, but it also benefits economic growth and creates an opportunity to export rice to other African countries.
Some have argued that the low quality of the rice harvested in some of our irrigation projects, like Asutuare, deters local rice consumption. There have been complains regarding the presence of stones and other foreign products in the rice. Of course, nobody wants to end up eating stones, wood any other material besides rice, but the real question is elsewhere. Why are there stones and other material? And why would farmers allow that in their rice?
At the Asutuare irrigation project, farmers are struggling with insufficient drying floors, a lack of milling machines and poor combined harvesters. Besides these technical challenges, they are also facing high costs of production because of the access to the paying drying floors, expensive water bills and problems with the fertilizer subsidy programme.
During my visit, I had the opportunity of comparing rice that has been milled manually with rice milled by the machine. The difference was very clear. Whereas rice harvested, threshed and milled manually contains stones and other foreign materials, the mechanically-processed one is pure. The latter will be more demanded and, hence, more sold.
So despite very tedious and costly production challenges, manual rice workers are facing an unfair competition that impacts their products, income and livelihood.
While we celebrate the 2015 edition of National Farmers’ Day, every stakeholder, especially the government, should commit to their roles and responsibilities in ensuring that rice production in the country receives the adequate support it deserves. Only then can the full potential of the irrigation projects in the country can be realised.
Bearing in mind that smallholder farmers are those who feed our homes, it is imperative to restructure our subsidy and support programmes to ensure that they are effective and can benefit the farmers.
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By: Daniel Oberko