Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame • Hacker News Board

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#21

Post by rmdashrfstar » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #18

mjfl wrote: post #3

in Ghana, how well are property laws enforced? Is there violence against farmers, like there is in South Africa? Article does not touch on this, but could be another reason why people choose not to farm.

This is both off topic and a flamewar topic, which the site guidelines ask people not to introduce. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html To give this article a fairer chance at having its actual content discussed, I'm going to collapse this subthread.

How is a simple question and reference to an event a flame war?

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#22

Post by deogeo » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #16

claudeganon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but this is largely a conspiracy theory concocted by the far right: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/23/white-farmers-...

The article doesn't really seem to back that up. Lots of the people pushing that theory are definitely alt-right types, but when the article doesn't present any facts to contradict them it doesn't make it seem like they're actually wrong. For some "conspiracy theories" it can be impossible to prove someone wrong, but there should be some pretty straightforward statistics to help figure out if this is bogus or not. FW…

> but there should be some pretty straightforward statistics to help figure out if this is bogus or not.

Sometimes they're not: https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stat...

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#23

Post by Mikeb85 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #3

in Ghana, how well are property laws enforced? Is there violence against farmers, like there is in South Africa? Article does not touch on this, but could be another reason why people choose not to farm.

Africa is a fairly large continent and its countries are varied in their cultures, languages, government institutions and politics. Ghana is among the safer, more developed and faster growing African nations, and is far, far safer than SA.

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#24

Post by Mikeb85 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

At the end of the day, people need food to eat. If farming can provide a decent living (in this case, it looks as though Ghana is under-served in this sector), people will fill that gap.

Even more than that, farming is an essential human activity and we could use another green revolution.

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#25

Post by adbge » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #4

mjfl wrote: post #3

in Ghana, how well are property laws enforced? Is there violence against farmers, like there is in South Africa? Article does not touch on this, but could be another reason why people choose not to farm.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but this is largely a conspiracy theory concocted by the far right: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/23/white-farmers-...

Even supposing that it's not happening in South Africa (ANC leaders are just singing about doing it [1]), land appropriation very much happened in neighboring Zimbabwe: "By 2013, every white-owned farm in Zimbabwe had been either expropriated or confirmed for future redistribution." [2]

To bring us back to OP's question, property rights in Ghana are listed here [3] as "weak".

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-safrica-racism-2010033... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Zimbabwe [3]: https://www.propertymarketsscorecard.com/countries/ghana/pro...

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#26

Post by mc32 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #24

At the end of the day, people need food to eat. If farming can provide a decent living (in this case, it looks as though Ghana is under-served in this sector), people will fill that gap. Even more than that, farming is an essential human activity and we could use another green revolution.

True. I think Ghana has it s bit easier than other places, because they haven’t suffered a prolonged disaster. Weak countries affected by ongoing disasters get international aid which can have “dumping” effect by undercutting the native farmers and making their enterprise less viable. In countries where this happens they (aid) have to be careful they don’t end up undercutting local economies when they try to “help”,

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#27

Post by FakeComments » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #18

mjfl wrote: post #3

in Ghana, how well are property laws enforced? Is there violence against farmers, like there is in South Africa? Article does not touch on this, but could be another reason why people choose not to farm.

This is both off topic and a flamewar topic, which the site guidelines ask people not to introduce. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html To give this article a fairer chance at having its actual content discussed, I'm going to collapse this subthread.

I see you’re still censoring to shape the narrative and silence wrongthink discussions.

Have you considered you’re not in the right, when both Congress and the Whitehouse have investigated social media censorship?

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#28

Post by nhhilltopper » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

Try finding capital, infrastructure, stable and non-corrupt government, and competent legal system in most of Africa (it is a large continent - not just Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa). Going much beyond sustenance in Africa is still a massive challenge.

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#29

Post by rmason » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

This is a great development for a number of reasons:

1. You've got high unemployment and a homegrown agriculture will put people to work.

2. Citizens diet is less dependent on a long supply chain

3. A local agriculture will drive down the cost of food. This will make a measurable difference in everyone's life. In America we pay 6.4% of our income for food, in Africa it's 60%. If the cost of food goes down people will have more money for other things.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu...

Re: Millennials ‘Make Farming Sexy’ in Africa, Where Tilling Soil Once Meant Shame

#30

Post by zizee » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

rmason wrote: post #29

This is a great development for a number of reasons: 1. You've got high unemployment and a homegrown agriculture will put people to work. 2. Citizens diet is less dependent on a long supply chain 3. A local agriculture will drive down the cost of food. This will make a measurable difference in everyone's life. In America we pay 6.4% of our income for food, in Africa it's 60%. If the cost of food goes down people will…

From your linked article, the reason people spend a greater percentage of their incomes on food is not because of the cost of food, but that their incomes are much lower:

> The figures do not mean that food is more expensive in Nigeria than in the US. In fact, quite the reverse. The average American spends $2,392 per year on food, the average Nigerian half that: $1,132. The average Kenyan spends just $543 a year on food.

There are many benefits of Africa having the infrastructure/skills/industry to produce food in a more scalable way, but % of income is possibly not the metric to measure by.

[edit] changed last sentence.