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White collar jobs take over from traditional roles
Traditional and ancient activities such as game and wildlife, palm wine exploitation and agriculture which have existed for centuries and which have marked the socio-economic and cultural life of the inhabitants of Dormaa are hastily disappearing.
The town of Dormaa, located on the forest belt of the Bono region, which was carved out in the former Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, has its natives mainly engaged in subsistence agriculture, where families cultivated crops. food crops like yam, pepper, onions and plantain on small plots of land for their daily consumption and survival.
In addition to cocoa trees, which they cultivated for commercial purposes, palm trees and kola nuts were also cultivated. They cleared the bushes during the dry season, from December to March, and prepared the ground for planting as soon as the rains came.
In the past, the common drink was palm wine, extracted from the oil palm. Palm wine harvesters felled rotten palm trees, which also produced mushrooms that met the family’s nutritional and protein needs. They used the palm branches to make baskets to carry food and mats on which they slept. They made fish traps or “Nsowa” with the branches to catch fish and crabs from the streams for their daily consumption. They also produced kola nuts to earn some income.
Barimah Ansu Gyeabour, Adomakohene traditional area of Dormaa, said that the people of Dormaa, besides being farmers, were practitioners of traditional herbal medicine, who relied on plants and herbs to treat diseases and illnesses. .
This practice has existed until today, after orthodox medicine dominated the scene for a few years. In recent times, it appears that the practice of traditional or herbal medicine has resurfaced and is taking root and, to some extent, alongside orthodox medicines.
Cocoa as a crop widely cultivated by the natives of Dormaa
The cocoa tree was introduced by Tetteh Quarshie at the end of the 19th century. There was a ready market for the cocoa beans, so many inhabitants of Dormaa cultivated large plantations, which paid dividends, providing better living conditions for the farmers. The earliest time to expect a good cocoa yield was from the sixth year of cultivation, which is why farmers grew other foodstuffs for their maintenance until the cocoa trees began to produce. fruits.
Information and communication technology (ICT) teacher Angelina Danquah said most of the natives of Dormaa were indigenous cocoa farmers and traders who used the product to support their families, support the education of their children and other relatives, and acquiring property, including houses and estates.
The search for ‘white collar jobs’ and how cocoa cultivation has declined over the years
Although agriculture, especially cocoa cultivation, is still a major concern of the natives of Dormaa over the years, it has become less and less attractive to the young people of the region.
Agriculture, including cocoa cultivation, is still largely undertaken in Dormaa and mainly overseen by elderly men and women, who often seem fragile to work on such farms due to their old age.
This has raised serious concerns about the sustainability and future of the cocoa industry in the region, where most young people find cocoa farming and the other traditional occupation; palm wine collection, hunting or game and wildlife are unattractive and therefore do not want to engage in it.
They therefore prefer modern jobs such as teaching, medical practice, nursing, engineering, journalism, electrical engineering, ICT, and building construction to name a few.
Station-2 officer Samuel Adjei of the Dormaa Central Fire Station said, for example, that hunting activity over the years has declined, attributing it to the introduction of regulations and groups of work that regulate these activities.
“The placement of the January to March ban was lifted after a period to ensure hunters return to their game,” he said.
Government intervention to modernize agriculture
In its quest to modernize agriculture, the government has launched several policy initiatives to make it attractive to farmers, especially young people. These interventions are deployed across the country.
Mr. Charles Aboyella, central city manager of Dormaa of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) was the government’s flagship program to address the problem of profitability and lack of attraction of agriculture for young people.
“Those who venture into vegetable production get improved seeds at government subsidized rates with machinery and irrigation farming where farming is done near a river or stream, which supports the cultivation of cabbage, lettuce and carrots, ”he said.
In addition, many farmers are embarking on the diversification of activities by adding poultry farming and agro-industry to supplement their main stream of income. Due to the emphasis on poultry farming in Dormaa, over the years the town has become extremely popular with commerce, considered to be one of the centers for the production of chickens and eggs, most of the young people in the region engaging in this.
The government, in an effort to support and sustain agriculture, has since 1983, after bushfires destroyed farmland and caused hunger in the country, instituted a national rewards program held on the feast day. farmers to reward hardworking farmers for their contribution to feeding the nation and beyond.
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