It is said that the devil finds work for idle hands. Without sounding like a doomsday prophet (and there are quite a few in this country now, who are thirsting for fame with ridiculous prophesies), I cringe each time the unemployment situation comes up for discussion on the airwaves.
For over three decades now, we have lived with rising unemployment even in times when we have had the paradox of economic growth without real development. The reasons are not far- fetched. The growth generators in the economy have merely inured to the benefit of external providers of capital in the oil, banking and financial, mining and the telecoms sectors.
These have been supported by external financial and human capital and do not require absorption of large numbers of the youth. At best, limited employment avenues are created on the periphery of these sectors characterized by under- employment and low incomes.
Worsening the situation is the regular repatriation of profits by the external capital providers in these sectors, thus denying the country of dividends to stimulate incremental growth.
Enormous potentials exist in the entire agricultural chain that I simply cannot fathom why we cannot start or renew our long- term developmental agenda by harnessing the low hanging fruits begging for just a little attention in the sector. What is the value of innate potentials until they have been realized? Strangely, we seem to be bereft of pragmatic solutions regarding how to harness these potentials.
Various faculties in our universities are brimming with research findings on the linkages between agriculture and industrialization. Yet, such materials continue to gather dust in the ivory towers as we continue to lament over university graduates remaining unemployed several years after graduation.
We are quick to introduce new taxes to meet specific funding gaps in our developmental agenda. Thus, we have had the GETFund, Road Tax, NHIS, National Reconstruction Levy, Talk Tax and a variety of others. I am yet to recall any such urgency in funding agriculture in its various facets, choosing to leave the sector to aged peasants and other inefficient small holder farmers.
The 2023 Budget allocation towards agriculture of less than 2% of the entire budget demonstrates our disdain for the sector. The budget does not recognize any nexus between increased agricultural output and the much- hyped 1D-1F mantra, nor any industrialization or export drive.
Painfully, the shocks arising from supply chain difficulties directly attributable to the Russian -Ukraine war has not jolted us into long term food import substitution strategies. We have preferred business- as -usual measures, even in the face of looming food security crises.
There does not appear to be any recognition of the spiraling inflation and the place of increased agricultural output in dampening such inflationary pressures. We cannot also find any concerted attempts to eradicate this monster called unemployment with its potential to destabilise our peace from the deep- seated frustration of the youth through growth in agriculture.
One cannot discern any serious attempt at exploiting inter-ministerial synergies to give agriculture the needed push in terms of finance, rural roads, transport and other enabling infrastructure to revolutionalise the agricultural sector.
The high cost of food items in the urban centres, coupled with high inflation on most goods and services is a major recipe for destabilization. It has been rightly said that peace is not necessarily the absence of war or the presence of a semblance of tranquility. A hungry, agitated work force reeling from increasingly diminishing purchasing power cannot be mobilized for any meaningful developmental agenda.
With rising unemployment and its dire consequences for social instability, isn’t this the time to deploy part of the army and some sections of other security agencies in a coordinated scheme to provide rural road engineering solutions since these agencies have such huge reserve of skills to prop up agriculture?
The involvement of the youth and the opportunities so created in the agricultural sector can be considered as akin to peace keeping exercises in my view. Crises situations require innovative, perhaps radical solutions; unless we have chosen to ignore the signs of restlessness in the youth who appear to become relevant to politicians only during elections.
Nobody likes to be chastised but the truth is that the solution to a problem begins with an admission that indeed the problem exists. One of our key problems in Ghana is that we are performing far below our potential as far as agriculture is concerned. What at all does it take to feed this small country that we cannot fix permanently?
When someone thought of constructing a national cathedral, suddenly we found suitable land for the project and have squeezed a whopping GHS. 230 million towards a less than 20% completion, albeit against stiff opposition. Yet we continue to whine about the difficulties in acquisition of land for large scale commercial agricultural production with the excuse that most of the lands are held in small holdings by various clans and families.
We comfortably forget the power of the state to acquire virtually any land in the public interest against suitable compensation. We have had forest reserves, some spanning for nearly a century. In the same vein, we can have state land banks where agriculture investors can operate without encumberances.
From poultry to animal husbandry, fisheries ,food crop production, agri-processing, one hardly sees any integration while we lament about the scarcity of fertilizer due to the Russian -Ukraine war. Can we not task the CSIR to come up with home grown methods of aggregating say chicken droppings, cow and pig dung, decomposable waste and mixing them with other local substances, for instance, as substitutes for the inorganic fertilizer that saps our foreign exchange reserves? Can we not produce hay locally to energise animal husbandry?
The citizen’s scornful attitude to agriculture must be purged, by sensitizing the youth especially about how agricultural growth is tied to their future well- being. It is sad to note the pervasive hopelessness of farmers in the rural areas who are stuck with the unfortunate belief that agriculture is only for disappointed people, while we lament about the cost of basic food items.
If we continue to despise agriculture and its players, we shall continue to shout ourselves hoarse and import over $600 million worth of rice annually while we unashamedly import common onions from a Sahelian/desert country and still wonder why our cedi is not as strong as other currencies.
Over the years since the Bagre dam in Burkina Faso was constructed, we have had to deal with excess water spillage that devastates large swathes of farmland in the north. Can we not charge our hydro and civil engineers to harvest this same water that devastates the lives of people downstream for all year- round irrigation purposes? I believe, where there is a will, there must be a way.
The late Col. Muamar Ghadafi of Libya is reported to have created an artificial river from the depths of the desert for agricultural purposes. Burkina Faso continues to produce tomatoes and onions for us to import with hard-earned foreign currency, although they suffer from more inclement weather and unfavourable vegetation than we do. The woes of the latter country have now been compounded by political instability. Yet, we do not seem to be drawing any lessons for our food security needs.
Industrialization has long been touted as being the engine of growth in this country. But if such industrialization does not recognize and exploit our extremely high comparative advantages in agriculture, we shall continue to wallow in poverty and hopelessness, while people are left to make any choices even if these stagnate this country’s growth (galamsey on my mind!).
Unfettered freedom and growth implications.
Faced with these realities, I am tempted to wonder whether Ghana’s democracy in its present form, with all the ideals of personal liberties and freedom to “choose to be poor” are not to blame for our economic malaise. And we continue to talk unashamedly about getting independence with the Asian Tigers around the same period!
Unfettered freedom in its current form in Ghana, cannot be a catalyst for any kind of sustainable development. The late Lee Kuan Yew said it so eloquently in his book, “From Third World to First World….”.Where is the leadership to galvanise the youth and sensitise them to really believe that agriculture is not for “the never do well”?
We need leadership that will focus on changing the people’s mindsets, even if this will involve some non-democratic measures. Lee Kuan Yew boldly emphasized in the above-mentioned book, “ I am accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say it without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here. We would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters- who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think”
These thought processes are tough for some to swallow but we cannot eat our cake and have it, when locally, able -bodied youth choose to flock into the cities, without any saleable skills, erect wooden kiosks even in plush residential areas, sell on street pavements, and have the audacity to think that no one can touch them because they have votes that they can use to determine who leads them.
We must take bold decisions now; not necessarily carrying catastrophic consequences. One of such decisions is consciously purging the citizenry of their scornful attitude to agriculture by getting the secondary schools and prisons involved in how the students and inmates are fed.
This initiative will be easier to organize than placing hair- cuts on people’s pensions and potentially destabilizing the banking and financial sector. We can do this by sensitizing the youth especially about how agricultural growth is tied to their future well- being. It is sad to note the pervasive hopelessness of local farmers in the rural areas who are stuck with expensive inputs and the unfortunate belief that agriculture is only for disappointed people.
Collectively, we need to be decisive about the role of subsidies in agriculture, among other initiatives. Subsidies come in a variety of ways, the sum total of which is to reduce the producers’ operating expenses; in our case, by constructing good roads, providing quality, research-based planting materials and other facilities to avert post- harvest losses and ensuring stable pricing regime for the output. These are designed to generate certainty and reduce risk in the sector but largely, Ghana has chosen to leave almost everything to market forces to our detriment.
The traditional view that agricultural subsidies induce corruption needs to be reviewed. Not even capitalist United States of America has been able to completely deal with mis-application of agricultural subsidies, yet it remains the biggest grantor of subsidies in diverse forms for its agricultural producers. Interestingly, the U S government even gives direct cash subsidies to keep local agricultural production down, when necessary, to stabilize prices.
Rural-urban migration and haphazard development.
Any time I see the horde of unemployed youth in the cities engaging in street selling, sleeping in wooden kiosks, creating slums, so insistent on “their rights” and engaging in despicable open defecation and other insanitary conditions in our cities, my hopes for this country’s future sag, even if momentarily.
From my foray into agriculture so far, the greatest challenge that I have faced ironically is the dearth of farm labourers in the countryside, because of how we have unconsciously made the rural areas less attractive for habitation, especially for the youth.
This unsustainable lopsided development paradigm that ignores the rural areas and promote rural-urban migration consciously or unconsciously, must be reversed through a real agricultural revolution; certainly not the expensive, uncoordinated ‘’Planting for Food and Jobs” initiative.
If there is any minister in the current administration that I admire and pity in equal measure, it is the Greater Accra Regional Minister. I see him as someone imbued with a genuine desire to rid the city of haphazard development.
Paradoxically his altruistic intentions are thwarted by a national reluctance to deal decisively with rural-urban migration which has over the years be-devilled spatial development in the urban centres.
His problem is compounded by short sighted compatriots who are only fixated on how to win the next election. Any bold attempt to sanitise the city regarding ill-sited structures, sanitation and noise pollution is met with stiff resistance. Politicians with their eyes on the next elections are unwilling to defy public agitation, irrespective of whether the tough measures are grounded in the nation’s long- term interest.
Uncontrolled migration, coupled with ill-defined rural development has led to the youth flocking into the urban centres in search of job openings that have remained stagnant for nearly four decades in a row.
Unwittingly therefore, we have created magnificent edifices in expensive residential areas, only to be surrounded by slums made of wooden kiosks where all kinds of people, including criminals reside with an aggressive sense of entitlement. Their activities devalue the properties of others who have laboured to acquire these against heavy mortgages and other financial commitments. The view that every city has its slums is not an excuse to tolerate the mess we find ourselves in. I still latch on to my stubborn belief that we can do better.
The writer is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, an adjunct Lecturer at the National Banking College and the Chartered Institute of Bankers, a farmer and the author of “Risk Management in Banking” textbook.
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