The Chief Executive Officer of Citi FM/Citi TV, Samuel Atta Mensah, says that the company’s campaign to get Ghanaians to consume locally produced rice is not targeted at destroying foreign brands.
He explains that the campaign is only aimed at ensuring that Ghanaian-grown rice is given the same prominence as foreign rice on the market.
In an interview on Peace FM on Monday, Mr. Atta Mensah assured Ghanaians that locally produced rice is of the same quality as imported rice.
“What we are saying is that so long as we have the capacity to produce the rice in Ghana, we should learn to eat our own. And on the packaging issue, you can put the local one boot for boot with the foreign rice and our rice will still be competitive. When it comes to pricing, our own is still competitive.”
“The only thing that is a disadvantage is that they [local rice producers] don’t have the shelf space because they don’t control the trade. These are smallholder farmers, smallholder millers, and smallholder marketers who have decided to take on a produce which is in abundance but has not been given the proper awareness. So we are just creating awareness, we are not after anybody or country. What we are saying is that the same way that you the Indian, Chinese, Thai, are promoting your own produce, we as Ghanaians too, it is time to promote our own,” he said.
Already, some foreign rice importers who hitherto advertised their products on Citi FM have terminated such contracts with the station.
Meanwhile, as the “Buy Made in Ghana Rice” campaign gathers momentum, the John Agyekum Kufour Foundation in partnership with Mr. Attah-Mensah is set to meet rice millers in Ghana.
Nana Ama Oppong Dua, the Policy Advisor at the John Agyekum Kufour Foundation says the meeting will be focused on matching rice importers with local production.
“The main objective will be to discuss the capacity of millers in order to match with those imported so that we can reduce rice importation. We will actually continue the matching process until hopefully in the next few years when we are able to get 100% sustainability.”
“We are expecting about 15 millers for this discussion and we are most likely going to discuss issues like financing, continuos implementation of right standards, the mill capacities, the storage, paddy sourcing and then varieties. We are expecting that after this meeting we will be able to collate all the capacities of the various mills or at least the major ones and continue the engagement with the importers. We also hope that on Wednesday we will be meeting with the financial institutions to have a similar dialogue with them in order to support the rice value chain”.
The Ghana Food Buffer Stock Company is also set to roll out a series of interventions with other state institutions to sustain the drive for the consumption of local rice.
According to them, this will help in the promotion and consumption of local rice.
The Company moved in earlier in the week to help mop-up a huge pile of metric tonnes of rice from fields in Northern Ghana.
This follows Citi TV’s report of rice in Northern Ghana going waste due to lack of market.
CEO of Citi FM/TV subsequently declared himself an ambassador for the consumption of local rice.
He also launched the Buy Ghana Rice Campaign to boost the consumption of local varieties of the staple.
Ghana’s voracious appetite for imported rice according to some stakeholders has had an apparent negative effect on the national economy, thus the call to reduce or halt the over-dependence.
The post Local rice campaign not seeking to make foreign brands unpopular – Citi FM/TV boss appeared first on Citinewsroom - Comprehensive News in Ghana, Current Affairs, Business News , Headlines, Ghana Sports, Entertainment, Politics, Articles, Opinions, Viral Content.
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