Mr Anthony Kofi Bona, Atebubu-Amantin District Best Farmer for 2012, said the use of weeding as punishment in schools discouraged the youth from entering into farming.

“Using weeding as a form of punishment in the basic and Senior High School (SHS) is negative and discouraged teenagers and the youth to develop interest in farming,” he said.

Mr Bona, 39, also a teacher at the Roman Catholic Primary School in Atebubu and assemblyman for Kokofu, has, therefore, appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) and other stakeholders in education to prescribe alternative forms of punishment to pupils and students that would not affect farming.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Kokofu near Atebubu, Mr Bona said some teachers, under the guise of using weeding as punishment, sent the pupils and students to work on their farms.

“Agriculture is not an avenue for punishment and poverty but a sector for wealth creation,” he said.

He said negative remarks by parents and guardians about farming to their children and wards also affected their interest to venture into farming. Mr Bona explained that most farmers in the rural areas attributed their poverty to farming but failed accept that they were subsistence and peasant farmers which normally could not generate enough income except foodstuffs and vegetables for their survival.

He said they rather encouraged their children and wards to learn trades such as tailoring, dressmaking, carpentry and hairdressing.

Mr Bona said due to lack of knowledge in applying technology, some of these peasant farmers failed to use the services of agricultural extension officers to improve their farming.

He said the land tenure system also impeded easy access to land acquisition for commercial farming by the few interested youth in the rural communities.

Mr Bona called on the government to intervene through the traditional authorities, metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies for the easy release of farmlands to interested persons based on mutual agreement and benefit for all parties.

He identified the get-rich quick syndrome as another discouraging factor among the youth to invest their time, energy and other resources in farming.

Mr Bona appealed to the government to adequately resource the Irrigation Authority to construct small dams in farming communities for irrigation purposes to encourage more young men and women to undertake commercial farming.

Mr Bona is currently a first year distance learning student of a two-year Post Diploma Basic Education at the Kumasi campus of the University of Education, Winneba. He started commercial farming in 2008 and employs seven permanent workers and 40 casual labourers annually.

He has 73 acres of crop farming comprising 14 acres of yam, 28 acres of maize, six acres each of rice and cassava, four acres of garden eggs, a six-acre teak plantation, four acres of mango, an acre of plantain and four acres of pepper. In addition, Mr Bona has 40 cattle, 24 pigs, 45 goats, 40 sheep and 45 local fowls.