Sixty five-year-old retired educationist and former District Chief Executive, Mr Benjamin Anhwere, has over the years justified his passion for farming by dint of hard work.
His passion has been sustained by the passion of the Saviour Church of Ghana, of which he is a member.
His love for farming started in his childhood days, long before he entered Training College. His interest in farming was heightened with the study of Agricultural Science and became a serious farmer as a teacher.
When he was appointed as the District Chief Executive for Mr Benjamin Anhwere, he continued to farm.
After his tenure as DCE ended in 2017, Mr. Anhwere became a full time farmer.
Today, he is a successful farmer by all standards, following an unprecedented breakthrough from teaching and politics to prominence in agriculture.
He conducted The Chronicle round his farms, dotted across the Adansi South District during a visit and narrated his success story in an interview.
He owns 18 acres of cocoa farm, five fish ponds comprising 5,000 Catfish and 2,000 Tilapia.
He has a 10-acre maize farm, five-acre rice farm and a six and five acre coconut and oil palm plantations respectively.
Mr. Anhwere is also into cultivation of yam, pineapple and ginger (mixed farming) on his cocoa farms.
In 2017, he grabbed the 2nd Runner-up of the Regional Best farmer award and followed it up as the Regional Best fish farmer in 2020. He was crowned the Best Cocoa farmer in 2021. His farms are taken care of by 20 casual hands under one supervisor (foreman).
His key to sustainable farming is the practice of organic farming and conservative agriculture using rice husk and chicken droppings as fertiliser.
According to him, he had benefitted a lot from farming and recommended farming to the youth in particular.
He further told this reporter that farming was lucrative and that he had even provided a borehole in one of the farms to serve other farmers in the vicinity.
He has also constructed a community centre at Wuruyie Community, as well as contributing to a church project through resources and proceeds from his farm produce, besides sponsorship of teacher trainees at the Colleges of Education.
According to him, his livelihood and that of his dependents depend on his farming activities.
Mr. Anhwere also pleaded with the government to support fish farmers by reducing taxes on imported feeds.
An impressed Adansi South District Director of Agriculture, Mr. Alfred David Mensah, has testified to Mr. Anhwere’s contribution to the promotion of agriculture and described him as forerunner of the Government’s Feed Ghana policy.
The Agric officer appealed to the government to consider subsidising importation of feed as high cost of feed was a major challenge in fish farming.
According to him, agriculture was the backbone of the economy and that it would not be out of place for the government to prioritise and promote agriculture generally and fish farming in particular by way of incentives to attract the teeming youth population into farming.
From Frederick Danso Abeam, Wuruyie
