She’s a Country Girl?

It’s no secret that one of my biggest apprehensions about my rapidly-approaching Professional Fellowship has to do with my lack of knowledge about the Agricultural Sector. I fear feeling overwhelmed by the science (or art?) of good farming. Maybe my Albertan pride has something to do with my nerves… aren’t Albertans supposed to be born with farming expertise in their blood? I’m ashamed to admit that as a city slicker, my “country roots” run about as deep as knowing the words to decade-old top 40 Country Hits and partaking in 20-odd years of Calgary Stampede festivities. 

When I first shared this worry with my dear friend and mentor, Pam Rogalski, she asked me why I thought knowing about agriculture was important to having a successful PF placement. “How can I contribute to an Agricultural Value Chains Team without a clear understanding of how agriculture works?” I replied. Pam laughed, as she does when she knows I’m about to have an “ah ha! moment”, and asked me whether or not I thought sharing my knowledge of the agricultural sector was going to be the biggest contribution I would make in my four months in Ghana.  

After realizing it wouldn’t be, we talked about the importance of understanding basic concepts of agriculture transactions (inputs, outputs, market interventions, etc.). These are foundational concepts for AVC programs and will be central to conversations I have with stakeholders in my partner organizations. We then moved on to talk about how my professional skills and experience might be applied to a range of situations, agricultural or otherwise. This may have been the biggest lesson I’ve learned thus far in my pre-departure preparations. The value of my 4-month placement will not be driven by my knowledge of local crops, or by agricultural knowledge more generally. It will come, instead, from my ability to motivate and support the change efforts of stakeholders who have lived and worked within the Ghanaian agricultural sector their entire lives.

Image: Farm just outside Claresholm, Alberta (July 27, 2011)

Yesterday, I drove from Calgary to Lethbridge to visit my Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle, cousin and her family. I’ve traveled back and forth to Lethbridge hundreds of times in my lifetime, always driving the same highways, passing the same farmhouses, and seeing the same expansive fields. With my departure day creeping closer, it’s not surprising I looked at it all with different eyes yesterday — I may not know much about agriculture as an industry, but it was clear to me as I drove how fortunate we are as Canadians (and Albertans) to have such phenomenal agricultural wealth and abundance.

As I drove, thought about some of the early connections I can already draw between agriculture in Canada and agriculture in Ghana. I thought about how Albertan farms compare in size and composition to the subsistence crops of rural Ghana. Where an Albertan farm may be several hundred acres in size, grow a single crop (i.e. canola , lavender, wheat or barley), and have a dedicated place in the processing chain and end-consumer market , Ghanaian farms (from what I understand) are often small and subsistence-based, meaning raw products will only be taken to market if the annual yield has produced more than the farmer and his family needs for the year ahead.

Image: Circular Irrigation System watering a crop. Courtesy of Google.

Seeing several farm irrigation systems at work yesterday also made me think about how privileged we are to have access to such vast amounts of water giving us a degree of control over the environment. Farms everywhere face the same threats of drought, flooding, and critter infestation (yes, that’s the technical term), but with irrigation technologies like the ones I saw en route to Lethbridge yesterday, Alberta’s farmers are able to monitor and adjust moisture levels in the soil to create optimal growing conditions. With implements like irrigation systems, harvest combines, automatic seeders, and high-tech fertilizers, Canadian agriculture has become “big business”, making multi-millionaires out of many farmers. How privileged we are.

This “country girl” has a lot to learn. I want to know more about the technologies being adopted by Ghanaian farmers to help grow their crops and increase annual yields. I am excited to learn more about the market facilitation work being done in Ghana to bridge the divide between the rural farmer and the private sector. I look forward to working with Ghanaian stakeholders at a time of phenomenal agriculture sector growth and advancement. And, of course, I’m looking forward to returning to Alberta with some dirt under my fingernails and a better understanding of Canada’s agricultural wealth.