with Charles Tjatindi
Farmers all over the world are plagued by several issues. These problems indirectly and directly affect the farmer’s life. Furthermore, farming practices and other aspects of agriculture can take up resources and time. The problems faced by farmers are typically unnoticed in the food industry.
Farmers in developing countries have a hard time transporting their produce to markets due to lack of roads, vehicles and money. They often have to carry their produce from the farm to local markets on foot or by bicycle, which can be challenging and time-consuming.
This means that they often have to sell their produce at very low prices because they cannot transport it to places where there is better demand for food. Farmers need capital to get their businesses off the ground and grow them into successful operations. However, they often have little access to credit or financing because lenders don’t understand their unique needs.
The lack of financial resources affects not only productivity but also affects the quality of agricultural produce. Farmers do not have access to adequate funds to invest in better technologies, machinery and equipment which results in poor-quality agricultural produce.
Agricultural marketing refers to the process of bringing a product from the farmer to the consumer. It includes activities such as finding buyers for the products, negotiating prices, transporting goods and getting feedback on quality. Because there are many people involved in this process, it can be quite challenging.
Farmers have to find buyers who will pay them a fair price for their goods while also ensuring that they don’t sell too cheap or too expensively. In many cases, they are forced to sell their products at a low price or even give them away because they cannot find buyers. This situation creates an incentive for small farmers not to produce more than what they need for their own consumption.
Farmers have often been forced to fall back on groundwater resources when surface water sources dry up during droughts. In other cases, they’ve had no choice but to rely on groundwater even when adequate surface water is available. This can cause problems as groundwater levels drop and farmers are unable to pump enough water to keep their crops alive through the dry season.
One of the major farmers problems has to be the loss of agricultural land, as when more land is lost, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce the right volume of food required to feed the entire population.
Another setback is the lack of adequate farm equipment, which can hamper their ability to adapt to the requirements of modern farming practices. When farmers are trained using the equipment, their lives can significantly develop. Implementation of said equipment is important.
Despite the myriad of problems that farmers face, there are a number of ways that farmers can avoid or at least minimise their impact. While technology is an obvious one, there are also solutions which are already available to the farmer. These include increase in investments and improved infrastructure amongst others.
While research has repeatedly shown that the world population is growing at an alarming rate and is soon to outpace the world’s current agricultural output in a few decades, there still appears to be a lack of solid investment in agriculture.
This is especially true when you compare other sectors and industries of the economy. Insufficient attention is given to investing in agriculture — improving farming operations and the lives of those in rural areas. This is an issue that needs to be rectified.
Adequate and targeted agricultural investment can result in high yield and other improvements such as increased agriculture infrastructure. Considering that the majority of top agricultural-producing nations are dealing with many other issues highlighted in this article, it makes perfect sense that they also struggle with the lack of efficient storage facilities.
The purpose of agriculture in today’s world is to increase food security around the globe. This aim cannot be achieved if farmers have to deal with inefficient storage facilities. It can be said that agricultural produce storage is just as pertinent as farming.
When trying to solve this issue, it is imperative to understand that it must be viewed as a business issue, rather than a farming one. For this reason, there needs to be the creation of amble storage such as cold storage facilities and on-farm storage units. These products can raise the availability of products.