A GNA feature By Priscilla S. Djentuh
Accra, Nov. 1, GNA – Every nation depends largely on agriculture for economic development, Ghana not exception.
It is estimated that more than 64 per cent people work in the agricultural sector in Ghana with an average age of 55 years and life expectancy averages from 55- 60 years.
The youth who comprise about 20-30 per cent of Ghana’s population have a wrong perception that agriculture is for the uneducated, unskilled, and involves physical labour with extremely low economic return.
The youth therefore abandon agriculture to the elderly who may not be physically and energetically strong to produce timely and effective results.
The major challenge facing the agricultural sector is the nature of bad roads, couple with bad land tenure systems, weather conditions, financial constraints and lack of mechanisation.
The nature of roads, create difficulty for farmers to market their products on time thereby resulting in post harvest losses.
This situation does not only leave the farmer penniless but it affects the economy as a whole. As a result, rural-urban migration is on the increase among farmers as well as the youth to find greener pastures.
The Youth in Agriculture Programme (YIAP) is a government initiative with an objective of motivating the youth to accept and appreciate farming/ food production as a commercial venture, thereby taking up farming as a lifetime vacation.
This initiative has key objectives, which includes generating appreciable income to meet farmers domestic and personal needs as well as improving their standard of living through improved income.
The YIAP also seeks to motivate the youth to stay in rural areas to produce enough food and livestock using modern methods.
A report by the Ghana News Agency in 2010 indicated that, a total of 47,000 have so far been employed under the YIAP Block Farming Programme initiated in 2009.
However another report blamed the dwindling fortunes in agricultural production to the lack of interest by the youth in the sector.
According to a provisional data captured in 2016 budget released by the Ministry of Finance, the sectors contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015 was estimated at 19 per cent as compared with 21.5 per cent recorded in 2014.
The agricultural sector in Ghana has declined steadily in the last seven years in terms of its contribution to GDP with a GDP of 31.8 per cent in 2009 declining to 22.9 in 2012.
MFarms
MFarms (mobile farm) is an innovative user-friendly mobile and web based system for managing and communicating with players within the agriculture value chain, aiming at improving the operational efficiency, communication and viable linkages within the agricultural value chain system.
Among others, the mFarms agribusiness solution aims to solve challenges facing various players within the agricultural sector including farmers.
In this technologically advanced era mainly patronised by the youth, the mFarms comes in handy to revamp the interest of the youth in agriculture/farming as well as help improve the communication effectiveness among farmers.
With mFarms solutions including actor’s module, which is designed for every member of the farming team to plan and track every actor in the agriculture value chain which includes agro-dealers, seed producers, farmers, off-takers and organisations, the youth in agriculture would be able to manage actor’s bio-data, track services rendered by actors as well as track and manage shops and farms by various actors.
Another solution offered by mFarms is the communication hub, which enables farmers and organisations to market their product, conduct surveys or broadcast messages using SMS and voice messages with instant delivery reports and dashboards.
Speaking at the launch of mFarms solutions Mr Kwame Bentil, CEO of Image Ad says the mFarms also provides solutions such as the field agent management, which aims at effective management of field agents, task assignment and monitoring of their activities when dealing with massive service group.
This solution, according to the CEO is essential for agricultural services based businesses that really needs timeliness and precision in its execution.
Other solutions provided by the mFarms include loan/warehouse management, crop production, market information, extension monitoring and transactions.
Mr Bentil told the GNA that three platforms namely Agribiz, Farmer to Market and m-Xtension are the main components of the mFarms.
”The m-Xtension to increase yield service aims at providing farmers with information on good agricultural practices, pest and disease management, delivering service through SMS and voice messages to farmers”.
The ”farm to market” service also seeks to bond farmers to output and input market which would help markets or groups to pool their demand for inputs such as fertiliser prior to the season. It would also help farmers to find market for their produce even before they undertake productions.
Mr Attipoe Larry, the Director for International Development of FAIRTRADE International, commended Image Ad for the mFarms agribusiness solutions, and urged farmers to take advantage of it.
He called on initiators to help make the app attractive to the youth suggesting active support from all for extensive solutions to be developed towards agriculture in the country.
The public could subscribe to the app by texting #AGROTIP Region and Crop to register on 0238101010.
Benefits of using mFarms
The mFarms services gives farmers a market before production thereby eradication the situation where farm produces are left to rot due to lack of access to markets.
It also helps farmers to increase their yield and incomes as well as providing techniques on what to plant and how to keep the soil productively.
In addition, farmers learn about improved seed and fertilizer application which would effect required productivity of farm produce.
The mFarms service provides among others weather information that highlights on precipitation forecast, that is whether it would rain or not, allowing farmers to better plan regarding time of planting and fertilizer application.
The mFarms allows farmers to track market prices via SMS and voice messages in local languages appropriate to the subscribed farmer.
This would make it easy for farmers who cannot read to receive updates of their activities in their own language via voice messages.
With 16 applications spanning over a period of five years in 19 countries in Africa, the mFarms solutions according to the Image Ad CEO, could be used by NGOs, farmer base organisations, logistics and Haulage companies, agricultural inputs companies and warehouse companies.
Other target audience includes Aggregators, processing companies and importers as well as farmers.
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