The government is committed to increasing the local production of rice to ensure that it bans the importation of rice.
It would be recalled that a former Deputy Agric Minister Kennedy Nyarko Osei has said by 2023, the government is planning to either ban or drastically reduce the importation of rice into the country by 90%.
The Akim Swedru MP, under the current government’s Planting for Food and Jobs policy, the country produces about 50% of rice consumed in the country, which is projected to increase significantly as the years progress.
Reiterating the government’s position on the importation of rice, the Upper East Regional Youth Organiser for the NPP, Salahu-Deen Musah Al-Khomeini said the government’s commitment to halting or reducing the importation of rice is evident in the projects that the government is implementing.
He said this when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show, yesterday, Tuesday, August 2, 2022. Mr. Al-Khomeini’s comments were made on the back of revelations that the president would visit Fumbisi; the Builsa South District to commission a rice processing factory said to be under the government’s One District One Factory (1D1F).
“Before you speak of stopping importation, you should be able to increase the level of production where you know that at that stage, you have all the necessary ingredients to withstand the demand of the local people in the country. That is what the government is doing.”
“Government is not just working on the Fumbisi factory, if you go to Nasia, there is a factory there. That has even started production. If you go where the tollbooth is, they have packaged the rice nicely there. In Savelugu, there is another one there.”
“That is why government is boosting production to be able to meet the local consumption. When that is met, we would have to ban the importation of rice,” he said.
Mr. Al-Khomeini encouraged farmers to sustain their production because the is a market available. “The Buffer Stock has been directed by the President to ensure that the food we supply to the senior high schools across the country is the rice that is produced by the local farmers.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
