Farmers deserve better than cutlasses and hoes as prizes – Mahama

He said farmers deserve to be better equipped to work, insisting it is archaic to dish out cutlasses and hoes to farmers as prizes.

Mahama was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a meeting with some bank heads.

NDC flagbearer, John Mahama Pulse Ghana

“I think we need to look at the prizes that we give and vary them a bit so that they enhance the productivity of the farmers.

“We still continue to give them cutlasses and all things like that, I believe that the hoe and cutlass agriculture is past so if we can give more of them power tillers and train them how to use them so that agriculture is not like back-breaking work,” Mahama said, as quoted by Adomonline.

He further stated that, in order to get the youth more involved in agriculture, Ghana must adopt mechanised ways of farming.

Mahama said rather than sticking to the ancient system farming with cutlasses and hoes, there ought to be the introduction of more modernised machinery to make farming less stressful.

“That’s why the youth are not interested in agriculture, because if the youth of today you ask them to take hoe and cutlass and farm, they won’t go, but if he knows that agriculture is mechanised and not as backbreaking as our ancestors have been used to, it will attract more young people,” the NDC flagbearer added.

Ghana marks its 35th Farmers’ Day celebration today, with the entire country recognising the efforts of farmers and fishermen.

The day is marked on every first Friday of the month of December and is observed as a national holiday.