Food aid not to discourage farmers ? Japan Embassy

The Japanese Government on Friday said the recent food aid to Ghana was not meant to discourage local efforts to boost rice production in the country. Rather the 18 billion-cedi worth of rice donated to Ghana was to meet increasing domestic demand and to stabilise, complement the country's efforts to achieve food security and contribute to improving Ghana's balance of payment position.

Proceeds from the sale of the rice would be accumulated as counter-value fund by the government of Ghana for the implementation of social development projects including those related to increasing food production.

Mr Motoyoshi Noro, the Charge d'Affaires at the Japanese Embassy, said his government was pleased with efforts of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to increase rice production to reduce imports by 30 per cent by 2004. He said Japan was assisting rice farmers in the country through the Small-Scale Irrigated Agriculture Promotion Project (SSIAPP) to increase production in the medium to long-term.

Under the SSIAPP, Japanese experts in collaboration with their Ghanaian counterparts have been supporting small-scale farmers to modernise farming systems and to reactivate farmers associations at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region and Okyereko in the Central Region.

Mr Noro also reiterated the Japanese government's continuous support for development programmes despite Ghana's decision to take advantage of the Highly

Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, saying that it was that commitment which underpinned its decision to convert the loan for the construction of the Accra-Yamoransa road into a grant.

He said Japanese experts were in the country to carry out feasibility studies for the project to take off. Japan also shared concerns of the other development partners in adopting new modalities such as the sector-wide approaches in providing fund and direct budgetary support to programmes.