Growing up we always saw the farmer as an uneducated person who wears tattered clothes in a small village. If you lived in that era the only occupation you looked up to was farming. This
emanated from the pressure from parents to go to the farm to harvest daily food. We frequent the farm not because we love it but if you do not go, you will not eat hence ‘No Contribution No Chop’.
That being established, one had no choice but to get a piece of land to cultivate subsistence crops for their livelihood or inherit one’s parent’s farm upon their demise. Land acquisition was not costly and there were vast pieces of vacant land. You could acquire land through conquest, discovery, gifts, and purchase. However, the latter was uncommon.
The above suggests that farming was purposely for consumption which evolved to barter trading of proceeds from your farm
depending on the type of crops you plant on the farm. Where if Aunty Moshie wants tomatoes, she can trade her pepper on her farm with Agya Kube who produces Tomatoes. Then Money came to change barter trading to a stage where farm produces were sold for money however the same was not profitable.
At a point, every farmer produces other crops viz a viz the main crops on their farm depending on the size. The traditional tools include but are not limited to cutlass, mattock, hoe, and sickle.
These days, a farmer is not seen as an uneducated person and this is because the elites have jumped into the bandwagon of farming. The farmer no longer wears tattered clothes but rather neat and fine clothes with boots. Graduates now venture into farming with the motive of gaining enough money from the same as a means of full-time employment. Others enter into farming with the desire devoid of any compulsion from parents.
The advent of technology has made farming very easy and attractive albeit with its challenges. The farmer today will not have to frequent the farm daily to water the crops. Irrigation is one of the methods used by the recent farmer to effectively do this same work on a vast line within a twinkle of the eye. Today it is costly to purchase land and everybody enters into a business for profit.
Today’s farmer will pay huge sums of dollars or Cedis to acquire vacant land and he or she has to get better returns for the same. He will put in all the arsenals in an attempt to achieve the goal.
Combined harvesters, tractors, pick-up trucks, automatic InRow Weeder are some of the new trends that are currently used by farmers. The evolution of the world has changed the motive, the method, and the tools for farming as well as the lives of some farmers.
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