Challenges Farmers Face in Ghana, A Global Perspectives Project

Feb 26, 2019

21st-century learners are more proactive and aware than they ever have been, and they are on a mission to spread the awareness, through all the resources and tools available to them. Nowadays, youth are talking about serious issues at the grassroots and the global level, from social injustices to economic slumps.

For their Global Perspectives project, our group of IGCSE Students created a website through ‘Wix’ about the challenges that Farmers face in Ghana. With increasing industrialization and migration behaviour, the role of farmers and the agrarian sector is slumping, when it comes to bulk production and distribution.

With pictures, their website gives an introduction to farmers in Ghana and the percentage of the economy that they make up. They also talk about the different types of farming that exist: subsistence, specialized, commercial and crop farming. The students have also done extensive fieldwork and have met different farmers who take part in different types of farming activities and have introduced them. Giving a face to the problem, and making us realize that when we do talk about farmers’ plights, we are talking about real human beings facing their reality.

Upon speaking to the farmers, the group of students have identified the biggest challenges faced, being - Diseases/Pests, Weather conditions, Irrigation, and Motor systems prices, farming expenditure, lack of government support, machinery, tools and more. Each factor detailed with real stories and pictures.

The biggest triumph of the project is the introspection of the challenges to come up with solutions. After all, for how long can we keep talking about problems? The students inquired into MOFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) who have been a major boost to the Ghanaian economy, educating farmers, donations, machinery, costs and more.

Coming to the end of their project, they have come to the conclusion that the solutions should not just be the responsibility of the government. The main purpose of the website is to spread awareness to everyone to understand that farmers’ plights are of global concern.

https://farmersinghana.wixsite.com/gp-project