There was a low patronage of this year’s farmers day in the Upper East Region. At the jubilee park in the regional capital, Bolgatanga where farmers converged to celebrate the day was almost empty.
A Planning Committee Meeting held at the Regional Coordinating Council on November 24, 2023 decided to postponed the celebration of the 39th Edition of the National event in the region for the first time. The committee sighted financial challenges as the sole reason for the allien postponement of the event. The event which finally took place on the 8th of December 2023 instead of 1st December, saw a poor patronage.
Madam Ndeogo Dorcas, the best physical challenged farmer from Kugashiegu in the Tempane district who travelled all the way from her district got disappointed as she was awarded with one pair of Wellington boot , a cutlass , a watering can Knapsack sprayer and a cloth.
Madam Ndeogo Dorcas lamented that she covered a very long distance to the regional capital only to be given things that cannot aide her farming activities.
“I have been awarded with a Wellington boot which I cannot wear. I have clothes, cutlass and they are giving me all thse to do what?.”
According to her, her husband struggles to paddle with their only bicycle to carry her to the farm. She wonders how she is going to use a rechargeable sprayer when her community is not even connected to the national grid.
“I am not happy. The knapsack sprayer they gave it a chargeable one. In my community, there is no electricity, so where am I going to charge the machine?. As for the Wellington boot, I don’t have legs to wear them, as for the cutlass, I already have one, I have cloth too, so I am not happy about the things they have given me”.
She added that a motorbike or a motor king would have help her to expand her farm to ease her financially burden, because the only means of transport available to her is a bicycle which her husband uses to carry the family to the farm.
She lamented how rain has been wetting her family on the farm during the farming season because the bicycle cannot carry all of them at a go.
She bitterly lamented how she spent huge amount of money in conveying her farm produce.
She is therefore appealing to the government, Non governmental Organizations, philanthropists and other Civil Service Organizations to come to her aid so as to help her reduce her financial burden by assisting her with a tricycle.
Source: mywordfmonline.com /Gaspard Ayuureneeya