No one wants to be a farmer; only a few. The rest are forced by circumstances. Like in Africa, lack of employment which forces people to try farming in an effort to earn a living.
Unfortunately these group doesn’t perform well in this field for various reasons: lack of passion, lack of funds, etcetera. They get into farming to satisfy a need and once that need is satisfied, they quit. A graduate who failed to secure a job, frustrated, goes back home to the countryside to try farming as he waits for a white collar job, only to quit once he lands the job.
But this is only because we don’t value and appreciate farming and don’t take it as serious as we do other economic activities because we have no rich farmers to inspire us, to make us dream about farming and being farmers. No kid ever says: I want to be a farmer when I grow up.
Where I grew up, and infact in most parts of this continent, very few farmers did it for commercial purposes, including those with big farms. Most people only grew crops and reared livestock for their own consumption, and only selling the surplus. And these was only carried out by our parents and those who didn’t pursue further education and chose to remain at home with no other way of earning an income.
And also important is the fact that these farmers only planted what they consumed. Like in my region, maize is our staple food. Folks here eat ugali which is either prepared from maize, cassava, sorghum, or sometimes both. And so these were the main crops grown, in addition to such crops as beans, peanuts, vegetables for stew, and wheat for porridge and brews. Among others.
Now that everyone was growing the above crops season in season out, meaning there was none, or no market for them. Who would buy a crop he grows? Not unless during ceremonies or they ran out of stock. The only way you could locally get market for your crop was if you were growing something that was hard to come by and not locally grown. To these day no one, I repeat, no one buys or equally sells a pawpaw, guava, passion fruits, jack fruits, pumpkins, or any other such things. Here people expect them for free!
For these reasons agriculture was underrated and despised. No one wanted their kids to turn out as farmers, not even those parents who lived of farming (esp. these ones). But you can’t blame them. Farming was considered dirty and a poor man’s job that no one took seriously, not even governments even though it was one of the top revenue earners in most countries. These governments wanted to earn but did very little in terms of supporting it. The result was poor, demoralized farmers and a struggling industry. These governments only focused on white colonial farmers and some wealthy African ones who had ready markets overseas and didn’t have too many demands.
So the poor man’s child goes to school and focuses on anything else other than farming on the parent’s blessing. Hence no educated farmers back then who was willing to use their education to farm and become successful from it. It was only considered a side hustle for the young and educated, and a full time job for the old and retired.
Now there’s no billionaire you can point your kid to that made their money purely from farming. No one. And how then do you expect a kid to say he or she wants to be a farmer?
But fortunately enough for us, it’s changing. Today more and more young people are getting involved in farming. Even though a good number of them are only getting into it out of desperation brought about by unemployment. But it’s going to get better. Hopefully one day a kid will confidently say he wants to be a farmer after school, and not a single one of his or her classmates giggles.