ECOWAS presents 500-tonne food grant to MoFA

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOW­AS) under its Regional Food Security Reserve has handed over 500 tonnes of cereals to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA).

The cereals, which is made up of 4,327 bags of maize, 2,015 bags of sorghum, 200 bags of millet and 3,458 bags of rice, is to be distributed as ‘food grants’ to eight regions in Ghana experiencing dry spells leading to the disruption of crop production.

The beneficiary regions are Northern, Upper East, North East, Savannah, Upper West, Bono, Bono East and Oti.

The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Bryan Ache­ampong, receiving the cereals made a plea for additional 10,000 tonnes to help to strengthen the resilience of populations affected by the difficult food situation.

Besides what had already been received, he stated that the min­istry had already obtained 34,000 tonnes of rice.

In order to store the foods, Dr Acheampong pledged that the government would build a 100,000 capacity silo in each region yearly, to store grains in order to cushion farmers during the dry season.

He added that the existing 80,000 tonnes capacity warehouse was insufficient, and he pledged to build 100,000 tonnes of silos or warehouses for grain reserves in every region.

Presenting the items, the ECOWAS representative in Gha­na, Charles Ndiaye, pleaded with Ghana to establish an additional warehouse in the north to store more grains for the sub-region.

“I believes the development of food security storage at the three complementary scales, namely local stocks, national se­curity stocks and regional stocks, allows the region to strengthen its risk management capacity and its food sovereignty,” he stated.

Mr Ndiaye expressed grati­tude to the several financial and technical partners that had been assisting with the Regional Food Security Reserve’s operationalisation since 2016.

The planting sea­son has been seriously ham­pered in ru­ral areas by the absence of rain over the last two months. According to reports, the Up­per East Region is the least dam­aged of the eight afflicted re­gions, with the Northern Re­gion being the worst.