Creative Writing Contest Vol. 19 | Farming: How has the quality and quantity of the crops grown in your community changed over time?

Greetings fellow steemians, it is quite a privilege to the part of this wonderful community wherein we can get to know about each other and our ways of life. Special greetings to @thegreens for the opportunity to participate in such an insightful contest in which we can share ideas about our farming systems and how they affect the quality and quantity of the products we produce.

This write-up will be divided into three parts. In the first part, I will describe the community in which the write-up is based and the crop in question. In the second part I will be talking about the crop, how it was done before, the quality and quantity and then how it’s done now, the quality and quantity. The third part will be conclusion and recommendation. That said, let’s get going.

I come from a community called M’mouck-Aghong. Aghong is one of the villages that constitute the wabane subdivision, Lebialem division, South West region of Cameroon. It is bordered by Bagang which is in the West region, Atualah, Marita Magha. It is situated along the western highlands of Cameroon and has population of about 900 inhabitants. In this community, irish potatoes is the main cash crop produced by 99% of the population. Even though other crops like cabbage, carrot, onions, garlics, are also produced, irish potatoes is the backbone of this community.

In the yesteryears, irish potatoes was produced by villagers only for family consumption and only the excesses were sold. Given the fact that irish potatoes is a vital ingredient in many delicacies around the world, the price of irish potatoes grew geometrically between the year 2002 and 2012 and has continued to grow till present day 2021. One of the reasons for the increase in prices of irish potatoes is the quality and the sizes of the crops. As price grew, farmers needed to seek new ways to increase production as to meet up with the high demand from traders.
During the tradition era, farmers used to cultivate without manure, fertilizer and chemicals. They crop was planted, weeded with hands, taken care of by nature and the farmer only hard to harvest. In this era, the quality of irish potatoes was very high but there very many problems. Is was difficult to cultivate large farms because it will be cumbersome to weed and do other works manually. The prices were low, the roads were bad and technology was low too.
This time around, irish potatoes farming has become a fun job given the many opportunities it has produced. Today, the population has grown go produce enough labour to work on the farms, there are chemicals used to weed and treat the crop, there are better roads used to transport the crop especially with the coming of Chinese motorbikes that can access any part of the farms.
The most significant change in the production system of irish potatoes in M’mouck-Aghong is the level of intensity. Intensity means that there is heavy use of fertilizers and chemicals to produce high quantity of the irish potatoes. In those days, planting was done on bigger beds and it was strenuous for the famer but today, the beds are much smaller making the work lighter. In times of weeding, farmers used to weed with hands and in the process they kill the caterpillars which destroy the crop. This was very stressful and ineffective but today, there are selective herbicides to kill only the grass and not touch the irish potatoes. There are also a good variety of insecticides to kill all insects and flies who destroy the crops at all ages. When blight and other fungal infections attack the crop, farmers used to plug off the infected leaves and hope that healthy ones grow but this was infective and in turn did more hard to the crop. Today, there are many fungicides to to help farmers care for the crop efficiently. In those days, harvest used to be done family and friends but today, irish production has employed many people who do different tasks in the different stages of the production. Transportation was done by farmers who carry small quantities on the head from farm to market but today, there are motorbikes to ease transportation. In those days, farming was mostly seasonal but Aghong farmers now produce irish potatoes every day round the calendar. In a nutshell, everything that has to do with more quantity of irish potatoes have become better and easier

As to whether the increase in quantity has affected the quality of the crop, it is argumentative because different people have different views about quality when it comes to irish potatoes. While some people consider the sizes of irish to be quality, meaning the fatter the irish potatoes the more the quality. This group is mostly made of traders who come from other regions to buy for commercial purposes. Another set of people will argue that the quality of irish potatoes have dropped given the fact that the taste has faded because of excess use of chemicals. This therefore means that the way you see quality in irish potatoes depends on what you want to use it for. The only thing that is glaring is that the quantity has increased significantly and production conditions have become better for the farmers.
At this point, I will opine that we all take a trip to Aghong village in the Wabane subdivision, Lebialem division South West region of Cameroon and have a first-hand experience of irish potatoes. In M’mouck-Aghong, we will give you irish potatoes the way you want it.

To this end, I will say thanks to @echamroland and @chiabetrand who directed me on how to go about steemit. Special thanks to @thgreens for this opportunity.