The government has been called to support the development of commercial farms in the country. Considering the investments that goes into a successful commercial farming venture, leaving it to independent farmers may produce a few successful farmers but not enough to facilitate the development and growth of commercial agriculture in the country.
The call was made by Chris Addy-Nayo during a visit to the farm of the National Best Mango Exporter, Mr Davies Karboes at a visit on his farm at Somanya in the Eastern Region over the weekend.
Discussing the challenges they faced in the non-traditional export sector, Mr Karboes stated that despite the prospects and potentials for commercial agricultural farming to contribute to the development of rural areas, government needs to provide the necessary incentives to attract more young men and women into the sector. He was however encouraged by the trend of the youth exploring commercial agriculture as an alternative form of employment. Mr Karboes whose exports can be found in supermarkets in England and other European countries also stated on the need to diversify into value-added products such as mango concentrates and fair-trade mango exports.
On another visit to the farm of Alhaji Ibrahim of NDC Frankfurt Branch, a number of challenges faced by commercial agricultural farmers were elaborated. Amongst these include the need for government to develop access roads to farms, support the provision of basic infrastructure such as irrigation systems and electricity, reduce tariffs on imported farm machinery, and provide competitive agro-financial loans to new entrants and insurance coverage against disasters such as floods and fires.
He explained that even though commercial farmers are prepared to shoulder all these responsibilities to contribute to food security and national development, it comes at such a huge costs that many potential farmers are discouraged by the uphill task to enter the sector.
Mr Chris Addy-Nayo reiterated that without doubt there are potentials for the growth of these non-traditional exports to contribute greatly to the economic potentials of rural communities, provide decent sustainable employment prospects for young men and women in the rural communities. However unlike the Services sector of telecommunications, ICTs, Finance etc the challenges cannot be shouldered by private farmers alone but requires some levels of intervention by government in infrastructure development to make the investments feasible to the independent commercial farmer.
