I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here! Premiere

Don't miss the premiere on Sunday 16th December in London! For more details visit: www.worldwrite.org.uk/subsistencefarmer

As Westerners celebrate nature and the so-called simple life, many in the developing world yearn for the comforts of urban modernity. Shot in Ghana, we learn that many would rather live in an urban shanty town than stay stuck in subsistence life in rural areas. Subsistence life means mud huts and mind-numbing toil. Helen wants a proper job. Cephus wants a commercial farm and a Jacuzzi, not mud walls and thatch. Comfort wants her kids off the farm and into education. De Roy explains that at least in a shanty town people can have access to a clinic, menial work, electricity, drinkable water, paved roads and TVs. I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here! is the final documentary in the Pricking the Missionary Position series. It is packed with hard-hitting truths which may disturb Western romantic notions of rural life.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• worldwrite
• development
• Africa
• Ghana
• politics
• trade
• aid
• growth
• sustainable
• subsistence
• farming
• rural
• urbanization

[zafo8712]

guess wat  ur black

[KeroroGunsouTX]

Also, there are tools and technology that they could make even in poor areas that would make the process easier. Look up Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization on TED Talks.

[KeroroGunsouTX]

Also, is working hard being a subsistence farmer worse than working a low paying manual labor job where you ultimately still have to pay for everything since you produce nothing yourself.

[KeroroGunsouTX]

One thing I question is are they trying to do everything alone? If people worked together to build homes, to farm, and to survive in general then it wouldn't be so hard.

[tgondo]

we should think about where all our food comes from and the disparity between what we will pay for it and what the workers get paid, and who is actually monitoring that for their benefit and not just the benefit of 'the biggies.'the farmers are so resourceful with what little land they have, imagine if they owned tesco's fields.

[doddycaz]

When 'farmers' with little more than a cabbage patch sized farm are getting so little back from FairTrade (around a penny a day, or £3.65 ayear!!)its no wonder the farmers want to get the hell out, or should it be 'get out the hell'?

[LeenaGangaShanti]

Clearly people can barely get by with subsistence farming so why should they do it. The 'big' money is being hoarded by the 'big' multinationals.

[ms00048]

When you think farm, you think acres of land, but these people farm an area smaller than most people's back gardens. Something I didn't realise til watching this film. How we take so much for granted when these people work so, so hard for peanuts. Well done WORLDwrite!

[ms00048]

Spreading the Fair-trade message to all poeple over the world might at least help to close the poverty of line to standard level!

[incedalbir]

This film questions our way of romantising subsistence way of life. We see in this film Africans are prefering to live in shanty towns rather than subsistence way.