The Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body (GRIB) has launched the 2022 Ghana Rice Festival and calls on Ghanaians to see farming as a business and not a punishment.
The Festival, to be held in Accra in November this year, seeks to put “Eat Ghana Rice” back on the minds of Ghanaians to help develop the industry and ease pressure on the economy.
Nana Adjei Ayeh, the National President of GRIB, who spoke during the launch of the Festival at Botanga, a central rice-growing area in the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region, iterated the need for the citizenry to eat Ghana rice to save foreign exchange and save the Ghana cedi from depreciation.
“As part of efforts to ensure more market for Ghana rice, GRIB is negotiating with the country’s security agencies to buy only the local rice to feed their personnel; I am optimistic that the arrangement will soon be finalized. Remember that we are on a rescue mission to address the food insecurity situation brought on us by the Russia–Ukraine situation.”
Nana Adjei Ayeh
Nana Adjei Ayeh assured the rice farmers at Botanga that GRIB is working to supply them with an additional combined harvester to improve their operations, especially in harvesting.
Also speaking at the launch was Madam Hawa Musah, the Northern Regional Director, Department of Agriculture. Madam Hawa Musah mentioned the Government’s various interventions to increase rice production in the country and urged farmers to take advantage of them to boost yield.
In steering the ‘eat Ghana rice agenda’, Mr.Dennis Obeng Agyei, National Vice President of the Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body (GRIB), expressed his resolve to court the youth into farming, especially rice cultivation, as means of earning decent incomes.
Rice farming is a business
Mr. Obeng Agyei, a young commercial rice farmer, said he was convinced that this would ensure sustainable food security in the country while halting rice importation.
He made this assertion in an interview on the sidelines of the launch of the Ghana Rice Festival 2022.
Mr. Obeng Agyei debunked the notion that farming was a punishment, saying it was a business, and urged the youth to venture into rice farming, adding that apart from directly cultivating rice, there were various roles they could play along the rice value chain such as, aggregating, milling amongst others, which are all lucrative.
He said in line with his mission, he is partnering with some agri-experts and unions to encourage their members to venture into rice production.
“I am writing to the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan and the National Youth Authority so that we all can come together to grow rice for sustainable food security so that we do not import rice again.”
Mr. Obeng Agyei
He appealed to the youth to explore rice cultivation in their backyards, where possible, to increase production in the country.
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