2022 National Best Farmer Speaks for the First Time, Nearly Broke Down In Tears
2022 National Best Farmer Speaks for the First Time, Nearly Broke Down In Tears
The Akyempimhene of Asante Juaben, Nana Yaw Siribour (i) was adjudged the overall 2022 National Best farmer on Friday at the 38th National Farmer’s day celebration held at Koforidua of the Eastern region.
The 2022 farmer’s day celebration was on the theme ‘Accelerating Agriculture Development through Value Addition’.
Nana Siribour reveals that he developed the vision to go into farming after attaining high level of education background from various tertiary institutions in Ghana.
The National Best Farmer made this assertion while sharing his experience as a farmer in his first radio interview on Koforidua based Afeema FM with Kaakyire Kwasi Afari, on Saturday, 3rd December, 2022 after his reward.
Nana Yaw Siribour has claimed that he started Agriculture business with a 20 acres of land.
His Agric contribution towards nation building has earned him 5 awards including national best farmer category.
He is a father of four, and a wife.
The CEO of Siribour farms nearly broke down in tears, whiles lamenting that, he nearly gave up on his farming business as a young farmer because, millions of cedis worth of over 30,000 catfish including matured ones in fishpond were washed away by flood after 3 days heavy downpour, added that he was left with nothing but huge debt.
However, the havoc gave him some experience to construct a dam to irrigate his vegetables.
Nana Yaw Siribour is the owner of the Siribour Farms Limited, which currently employs a total of over 145 workers, comprising 25 full-time employees, 170 casual employees.
The farm, located at Ejura and Akokoa communities in the Ashanti Region, is highly diversified with crop enterprises covering the broad areas of grains and cereals ( 240 acres of maize, 60 acres of rice, soybean, cowpea), vegetables (okro, tomatoes, cucumber, cabbage, carrot, sweet pepper), plantation crops (mango, cashew, 850 acres of oil palm, 80 acres of cocoa), timber species (15 acres of Teak, sugarcane, 47 acres of cassava.
The farm also has avocado pear, pineapple, watermelon, cocoyam, 5,000 mouse of yam and mushroom. The livestock enterprises consist of large ruminants (250 cattles), small ruminants (sheep and goats), local and exotic birds, 400 pigs, 3,000 guinea fowls.
Again, his farm can also boast of pigeons, turkeys, ostrich, 400 quails, geese, rabbits, guinea, 20,000 fowls, 50 turkey, over 300 rabbit, pigs, over 100 grass cutter, snails, palm weevil larvae (Akokuno), ducks and beehives. In addition, Nana Yaw Sarpong Siriboe has six silky bantam, 156 brahma and eight fish ponds stocked with catfish and tilapia.
The 43-years-old farmer told Kaakyire Kwasi Afari that even though farming is a lucrative industry, most of the youth feel discouraged to chart that path because they assume it requires huge funding, massive land and sophisticated technologies to begin.
“You can start farming with one acre of land. You can grow vegetables, make sure you have your market, sell it and reinvest the small profit into the farming and it will gradually grow,” he said.
He stated that in as much as funding is very essential, it is necessary to start small with the little capital and piece of land available to acquire firsthand knowledge and skills to subsequently leverage for funds in future.
“But if you start small, you will get the experience and evidence to seek for financial support. Access to capital in this country is difficult and it cuts across in all sectors, so at the initial stage, you can generate capital from banks and try to take advantage of government policies,” he stated.
He emphasized that contrary to the misperception that agriculture, especially farming, is for the uneducated, unskilled and aged, the current Best Farmer, who doubles as a professional mechanical engineer, made a case for why the youth can actively participate in the sector.
According to him, the youth constitute a chunk of the labour force which when tapped efficiently can increase yield and improve profit margin.
By Kaakyire Kwasi Afari
