Gov’t lauded over policy to stop rice importation

The Multi–Stakeholder Rice Producers and Marketers Association has lauded the government for the decision to abandon the importation of rice and encourage the patronage of rice produced locally.

The Executive Secretary of the association, Zakaria Issah Nabila, said this in an interview with the host of Might Morning Flight, Shaibu Awudu.

Mr. Nabila said “it is sad seeing farmers toil to produce rice and at the end of the day marketing becomes a problem because of the influx of foreign rice on the local market”.

Government promised to produce 20,000 metric tonnes of “highest grade” quality rice by 2012 to reduce rice importation.

To this end, interventions such as providing the necessary machinery and promotion of Private Public Partnership policy have been intensified to enable Ghana to increase rice production to meet the target according to then minister at the presidency in charge of finance and allied institutions and now Agric minister, Mr. Fiifi Kwetey.

Ghana as at the end of 2011, spent about 450 million dollars annually on rice importation to augment local demand.

The country’s self-sufficient in the rice production stands at about 30 per cent, leaving a short fall of 70 per cent.

Mr. Nabila called on the government to speed up the processes of making basic logistics available to rice farmers to enable them produce to the needed capacity to eliminate the importation of rice.

He said the Multi–Stakeholder Rice Producers and Marketers Association would vehemently resist any attempts by the government to back down on this decision.

Mr. Nabila called on credit unions, rural banks and other financial institutions who support farmers to make their terms as flexible as possible to enable farmers access them to produce more rice to feed the country.

The Multi – Stakeholder Rice Producers and Marketers Association is a group in the Northern Region formed in 2012 to represent the production chain of rice in the region.