From the little time I have spent on Earth, I have had the privilege of witnessing the magic of various professions. However, the profession that has spurred my interest the most is farming. A long time ago, I attempted to join my grandmother at her farm and as you can imagine it did not go well. I spent the entire day sitting under a tree because I had somehow passed out from being in the Sun for less than an hour. And because at the time of this visit to the farm, my cousins were present, this incident earned me the title of Princess, which I have kept to this day.

However, all was not lost because from my (shall we say) vantage points under the tree I was able to watch how my grandmother and my cousins tilled the land and planted crops and how much time and effort they gave into making sure that the crops on the field, where the best possible or rather have the best possible chance. While I realized that farming definitely was not for me, I got to see the workings of the farm and how much love went into the crops that my grandmother sold. My grandmother was mainly a cassava farmer and oftentimes she turned her crops into various products such as garri and tapioca which she sold to people within her community and outside of the community.

I remember conversations I had with my grandmother where she told me about how important the community was to her as a farmer on the days when she was too weak or sick, as she couldn’t go to her farm, her neighbours with farmland close to hers would happily take out time from the busy day to help her keep up with the tasks of handling the farm because she had done the same for others when the need arose. They made sure that all of them within the community were always taken care of. 

Much like the saying it takes a village to raise a child, the same can be said for farming. To be a successful farmer it requires the entire community, from the fellow farmers that will support you to the people within the community that are your regular customers. As the world is fast becoming a global village and everything is moving towards digitisation, we need to take steps to preserve the feeling of community that farmers like my grandmother were so proud of.

Agriculture provides excellent value for each and every one of us, which is why we all need to be more consciousness and make efforts to support our farmers. We at CoAmana have taken the step to support the digitisation of these farming communities but for the ultimate survival of our farmers, we must lend a hand.