Agric Minister worried over excessive importation of rice

The Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has revealed that Ghana spends close to one billion dollars on rice importation each year.

According to him, this colossal amount of money is being used to import rice from Vietnam, Thailand, India and America, when the country has farmers and arable land to grow rice for domestic consumption, and even export to generate foreign exchange.

Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto said this when he visited rice farmers at Agona in the Sekyere South District of the Ashanti Region. To remedy the situation, the Minister said the government had already imported 1,700 rice mills and thresher machines, which are now at the premises of the MoFA to help rice farmers harvest their produce.

According to the Minister, the harvesting machines will be released to the farmers after they have made initial deposits and the balance paid after harvesting the rice.

He told the farmers at the various towns and villages he visited that the announcement by the government that it would ban rice imports in the next three years had led to strong competition for the produce. “Your rice is what Ghanaians are going to consume, so you have to work hard,” he told the farmers.

He also revealed that his ministry had imported 1,700 thresher machines, which would be distributed to the farmers after the initial deposit.

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