Farmers are calling for the removal from office coordinators of the Farmers Day events in Ghana, for being discriminatory.
According to some of the farmer association heads, 2021 marks the fifth consecutive year the event organizers have failed to officially invite them to the national programme.
According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for Ghana National Association of Farmers and Fishermen, Nana Oboadie Bonsu, at this year’s event–like the past four years– the coordinators have not apportioned a place for exhibition of their produce either.
“A stand to indicate the designation for farmers is absent. There should have been a place for farmers to display their produce”, he said in Twi on the Anopa Bofoɔ morning show.
Nana Bonsu added: “The area designated for farmers is for award winners.”
The PRO therefore blamed the coordinators for skewing the organization of the event to exclude the larger group, since what they experience now was not how it used to be prior to 2017–the year New Patriotic Party assumed government.
“The coordinators are destroying the Farmers Day and tarnishing the image of the government” he stated.
President of Women Farmers Organization Network, Nana Serwaa Kruwaa, who corroborated Nana Bonsu’s assertions, said the events over the period have been organized for large scale farmers only.
Sharing her experience, she said, “last year we attended the event at Techiman. The situation was same. There was no place set up for farmers.”
Nana Serwaa Kruawaa argued that in as much as the large scale farmers may produce for export, there are those who produce on relatively low scale yet contribute to development of the country because the community members fall on these low scale producers for their daily needs.
As such, the farmers must be accorded some level of respect and be given the necessary help to scale up.
They nonetheless called on the farmers groups and individuals to unite to fight for the right course and redefine the industry.
The Farmers Day was instituted by late Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings-led Provisional National Defence Council in 1985. It has since been observed every first Friday in December.
Organized and celebrated under the auspices of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MoFAD), it is observed to recognize and appreciate the substantial contribution of farmers and agriculture production to the socio-economic development of the Country following the 1983 famine.
This year’s, falling on December 3, was held at Cape Coast in the Central Region.
