Let’s take agric seriously else we’ll start importing basic essentials – Dumelo

Farmer and politician John Dumelo has warned that if Ghana does not as a matter of urgency take agriculture and agribusiness seriously, the country will soon find itself desperately depending on importation to meet its most basic needs.

Dumelo was speaking to Accra-based Hitz FM’s Doreen Avio, Sunday, June 18, 2023.

After engaging the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) parliamentary hopeful, Dumelo, on his preparations towards winning the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency seat come 2024, Ms Avio turned her attention to his passion for farming.

He said it is “amazing.”

“I mean, everyday, I’m thinking about new ways to make farming great again in Ghana,” he noted.

John Dumelo said “…agric is the only thing that we have,” appealing that: “We shouldn’t let that slip away from our hands.”

“Either than that,” he warned, “we’re going to start importing everything from eggs to whatever it is…”

He stressed that Ghana “should take control of our agric industry,” noting that: “There’s so much potential.”

“The youth should get into it,” he encouraged. “There’s so much potential.”

He was optimistic that should his advice be taken seriously, “trust me, I know that in the next 10, 15 years, Ghana would be at the top when it comes to agric.”

The movie star-turned-farmer’s agriculture journey began in 2012.

The Africa Report in a January 2023 publication quotes Dumelo recalling that: “Between 2012 and 2014 I travelled extensively around the country and found that millions of acres of arable lands lay fallow, but we were still importing food. This did not make sense to me and so I decided to get involved and I love it so far.”

Stigma associated with farming, limited access to lands by young people and difficulty in accessing credit are some of the reasons there is little to no youth participation in the local agric space, according to a 2021 Heifer International report.

Agriculture is a touted pillar of the cocoa-rich West African country’s economy but in 2021 only, it is reported, Ghana imported about US$1.9 billion worth of agricultural and agric-related products.

While “not everyone can be a farmer,” John Setor Dumelo believes, “everybody can get into the agribusiness space.”