Professor David Millar, President of Millar Institute for Trans-disciplinary and Development Studies (MITDS) has proffered the use of simple pricing to cut down drastically importation of locally produced products in order to boost agriculture production in the country.
He was speaking to Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith on the Day Break Upper East Show yesterday, August 25, 2022.
“Before you get to productivity differences you can even use simple pricing. If a locally produced bag of rice is one cedi and the imported rice is twenty cedis, rational consumers; the young ones with small budgets will go and buy their one cedis bag of rice and those who have wind force can go and buy their twenty cedis bag of rice.”
He said the government has to dictate prices of products “somewhere along the line. You don’t do it by actually pronouncing a price; you do it by differential taxation. If rice is coming from Europe I’ll tax it 300 percent, if rice is produced in Ghana there’s a tax holiday.”
Meanwhile, Professor Millar’s research on transforming grass into charcoal and paper is expected to receive a 4 million-dollar injection from a private investor. In line with the investment, a factory would be established in the Upper West Region to produce charcoal and paper from grass.
Professor Millar disclosed this when he spoke to Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show.
“An investor came and he wants to set up a factory. Right now, he has 4 million dollars to invest. He wanted to invest in the paper; I said no, do paper and then charcoal. [This is] because some of these products, it is the same input. You can maximise your factory. He was very excited and is mobilising.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Osuman Kaapore Tahiru|Ghana
