Rice sufficiency target in limbo as 2024 deadline looms

Domestic rice production still hovers around 40 percent, with barely a year to exhaust the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s (MoFA) target for meeting rice production self-sufficiency.

Though local production has been increasing minimally over recent years from 30 percent in 2015, stakeholders are apprehensive MoFA may not meet the National Rice Development Strategy II (NRDS – II) target – a policy that was reintroduced in 2022 to achieve rice production self-sufficiency by end of 2024.

The policy, among other things, was instituted to ensure sustainability and comprehensive development of the rice crop – and serve as a guide for all projects and interventions in the sector.

The target – previously set by government to be achieved by 2023 – was moved to December this year.

Former sector minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, said government has invested in harvesters, other farming implements and brought in four different types of solar-powered milling machines from China to improve on production and meet the target by end of this year.

He said this during an interaction with farmer groups and value chain operators in the agricultural sector of Bono, Bono East and Ashanti Regions during May 2020.

Despite the supposed progress made, about 60 percent of rice consumed in Ghana is imported – with an associated import bill of more than US$500million per year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Meanwhile, rice value chain stakeholders – including the Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body (GRIB), have been sceptical about the target; citing numerous issues including the lack or unavailability of good seeds, capital, mechanised systems of farming, agronomic inputs and land development as among the challenges farmers continue facing with no end in sight.

For instance, Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Crops, Yaw Frimpong Addo, admitted that the country is still having teething challenges in both the rice-seed and grain value chains.

He said farmers continue to encounter challenges during the post-harvest stage in maintaining quality standards that make domestic rice competitive.

Some of the challenges, according to him, include inadequate processing infrastructure and modern milling machines; insufficient silos for storing paddy before milling; inadequate quality standard testing for both seed (paddy) and milled rice, among others.

Being the first countries in the sub-region to launch the first-ever National Rice Development Strategy I, Ghana has already missed out on its local rice production agenda as part of the Coalition for African Rice Development Strategy.

That strategy – which was first unveilled in May 2008 as the National Rice Development Strategy for the period 2009-2018 – aimed at increasing domestic production up to 70 percent, and promoting consumption through quality improvement and targetting both the local and international markets.

The initial strategy ended five years ago, and rather achieved an opposite result of 70 percent imports; with the Ghanaian consuming public still largely dependent on foreign rice brands.

Data from MoFA show rice consumption continues to increase due to population growth, urbanisation and change in consumer habits.

MoFA indicates that between 2008 and 2020, paddy-rice production was in the range of 302,000 metric tonnes to 987,000 metric tonnes (181,000 to 622,000mt of milled rice) with large annual fluctuations.

The total rice consumption in 2020 amounted to about 1,450,000 metric tonnes which is equivalent to per capita consumption of about 45kg per annum, according to MoFA.