'Farming can make you richer than office work'- Graduates told

The Founder and Head Pastor of Bible House International Community Church in Accra, Rev. Justice Dennis Boamah has questioned why many Ghanaian youth are poor and remain unemployed, when large tracts of land are lying fallow across the country.

The farming business, he said, is more lucrative, more sustainable and can make them richer than any salary earning job.

He lamented that the Ghanaian youth especially the graduates and semi-educated ones had become unreasonably lazy and proud in themselves; and continue to live with the mindset that they are only good for office work but don’t deserve to be farmers.

In a very touching and passionate sermon delivered on Sunday December 2, 2018 on the topic: “Facts and Figures verses Faith and Favour in the life of Abraham,” Rev. Boamah cited Abraham as one of the few people who received unmatched blessings from God because he feared the Lord and also worked hard to realize the manifestation of God’s promise.

Centered on Isaiah 51:1-3 and Genesis 13:1-7, his sermon inspired that, Abraham was called by God when he was an idol worshiper and had achieved nothing, even at the age of 75 years, but through faith, obedience, favour and hard work, God’s promise of blessing for him [Abraham] came to pass.

“Genesis 13:5-6 will tell you that, Lot, who was moving about with Abraham, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not contain them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together”.

According to Rev. Boamah, cultivating food crops and rearing animals such as cattle, goats, sheep, fishes and fowls stimulates economic growth and creates more employment for many unemployed.

“Our leaders are not serious with the agricultural sector which can employ almost every Ghanaian. They are always in a hurry to import foods into Ghana at exorbitant price when we have large amount of land in Volta, Brong Ahafo, Western, Eastern and the Northern regions so green and fertile for any farming purposes. We have millions of youth who are not working and have turned into armed robbers, vigilantes and drug addicts simply because we don’t have leaders who will inspire or support them to go into farming”.

Rev. Justice Dennis Boamah said that God had deposited so much in the land for the blessing, riches and prosperity of his people yet the leaders go with cup in hand to beg for alms.

“There will be no problem of unemployment and there will be so much money in the country if majority of Ghanaians including the graduates learn to farm to feed themselves or for commercial purposes, because the money that will be used to buy the imported foods will remain in the pockets of Ghanaians and the economy will grow faster,” he indicated.

Expressing his disappointment in successive governments for not doing much to modernize or move away from the use of basic tools for farming, Rev. Boamah observed that rapid mechanization of the sector would stimulate growth in the nation’s GDP and better the lives of farmers.

Meanwhile, more than 1.2 million persons from 15 years and older are estimated to be unemployed, representing the total unemployment rate of 11.9%, according to the 2015 Labour Force Survey Report.

Of this number, about 714,916 are females, representing 57.2 percent and 535,997 for males representing 42.8%.

The survey revealed that 4.2 million persons, representing more than half, 52.5 per cent of the currently employed are engaged in the private informal sector, whiles the agricultural businesses engages only 2.1 million of those in current employment.

Interestingly, the survey indicated that “in the area of education, the unemployment rate was relatively higher for persons with education than those with no education and similarly, unemployment rate was highest for persons with secondary education than those with Middle School Leaving Certificate or Basic Education Certificate Examination certificates”.

“We now live in a country where many adult parents who could have taken up farming as their occupation have spent all their lives and energies working for private sector and earning salaries as small as peanut. They could not make anything meaningful out of those salaries."

"Now that they old or on retirement, they expect their children to cater for them. Unfortunately these children have completed universities and also want to follow the same mistakes of their parent by waiting to be employed by government or private sector when their family lands are wasting away. What kind of people are we?” Rev. Boamah questioned.