THE Second National Best Farmer for 1998, Mr Nicholas Fato, has stressed on the need for major transfers of agricultural officers from the grass roots to the top.
That, he said, was necessary because some of them had been in their stations for long periods of time and taken to drunkenness.
Mr Fato, who was also the overall Best Volta Regional Farmer in 1995, said extension officers should be paid well and inputs for farmers made more accessible to them by making sure that supplies are done on door-to-door basis.
He said bureaucracy was not good for peasant farmers, adding that the present arrangement where coupons for fertilisers and other farming inputs could be accessed between a distance of 20 and 30 kilometres from home was frustrating them.
According to Mr Fato, the land tenure system was another bottleneck which prevented the youth from venturing into agriculture.
He stated that availability and accessibility to land was very difficult and needed to be reviewed.
Mr Fato, who is also an international consultant on pragmatic consultancy in sustainable animal and crop production, said marketing of agricultural products should be redefined within the context of the School Feeding Programme and others, in order to make it the proper outlet for feeding Ghanaian children on what the nation produced.
Mr Fato, who had also won the best regional farmer awards for maize and rice in 1990 and 1992 respectively, said the nation had abundant potentials in agriculture but was still lagging behind in initiating the necessary policies required to feed the nation.
He said he was prepared to support the government towards the achievement of revolution in agriculture in Ghana.
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