Agriculture is a major sector in Ghana that the Ghanaian authorities must consider using to address inequality, poverty, and unemployment among the youth in the Northern region. This could also be an opportunity and avenue for the teeming youth to become self-sufficient considering the vast and rich land available in the region.
Due to the obstacles surrounding farming activities in the country, the youth in the Northern region are unwilling to venture into agriculture for fear of not reaping what has been invested.
In recent days, some youths who tried going into Agriculture have joined the already existing unemployed graduates in the country to chase non-existing jobs and limited opportunities.
A University graduate, Fuseini Hassan Nantogma age 32, and a one-time local farmer from the Yendi Municipality who currently resides in Tamale mentioned that agriculture is the only area that can turn the economy of the country around when made a national priority by every government.
Hassan Fuseini who’s now in the courier business in Tamale, whilst searching for a job registered his readiness to return to the farm, but the capital and workforce involved are discouraging him and many other interested youth.
He explained that he quit farming before coming to Tamale due to the high price of farm inputs and the labour involved, and that, the Ghanaian youth would only prioritize farming if the government truly had the youth at heart and restructured the sector to make it more appealing.
He suggested that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture consider putting the youth into groups in communities and assist them with the needed support devoid of involving local politicians when giving out support.
He explained, “Government should target the youth and the youth should be between the ages of 18-25, they should be given supervisors to start the farming. If you’re to plow let’s say one hectare of land for any crop, you need not less than Gh¢3,000. This is because you need to acquire land, you need to buy ‘condemn’ to spray the place, a tractor must plough the land, you’ll need labor, you’ll need seedlings, and then the feeding of laborers. All these are setbacks”.
He urged the government to restructure the agriculture sector to make it more appealing to the youth, adding that, money should not be given to the youth but equipment, cereals, and other incentives should be made available.
The Northern Regional Director of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Mr. Mumuni Suleimana said the agriculture sector in Ghana is stressful and not attractive to the youth hence over 70% of the old folks still form the majority in the agriculture sector.
“The youth are not involved in farming and the reason is that the sector is not attractive, it looks tedious and risky. The risk level is very high when you move into that sector and young people who want to make it in life wouldn’t want to venture into anything that can be described as a risky area. Why do I say so? We have climate change issues and one cannot boldly describe the raining pattern in Ghana, there were times people thought the rains could start around March, and at a point, it became April and May, it keeps changing, and even the timing for farming is an issue because we depend on the natural rain. Now the youth’s interest in animal rearing, the feed alone is very very expensive, to feed poultry is expensive so even if the government should give you some number of birds, but as to how to take care of these birds will be challenging because you don’t have money and maintaining such an enterprise will not be easy”.
According to him, the youth of today must be made to picture agriculture as a modern business. “That is modernizing Agric and to modernize Agric, here, it means that we should make Agric a mechanized form of agriculture where we use more sophisticated equipment and tools that wouldn’t require just a cutlass and hoe which is quite tedious to deal with, again we should find another means of avoiding certain factors like the importation of certain products into the country because ones the local market is competing with the foreign market, they have other technology they employ so prices of their goods will always be lower”.
He called on the government and NGOs to offer incentive packages to the young ones to attract them into the agriculture enterprise.
He further advised the youth to give a second thought about Agriculture, stressing that, “It is time we did away with this mentality of Agric being for villagers and the poor, agric being for the underprivileged, Agriculture has turned around economies elsewhere, we also need very intelligent and enthusiastic youth to move into the sector, they will need the guidance and coaching of those elders who have ventured into the sector and had succeeded to encourage them to know that they can also do it. I’m advising Ghanaian youth never to give up in the sector”.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com |Ibrahim Nurudeen
