Local rice to be distributed from central location

Accra, July 11, GNA - The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Ernest Debrah on Wednesday commissioned a 60,000-bag capacity warehouse in Accra for the storage of locally produced rice.

The move is to ensure that locally produced rice, which most often suffered from marketing problems, could be obtained from one centrally located point for distribution, especially to support the Government's School Feeding Programme. The warehouse is being managed by the Ghana Rice Inter-professional Body (GRIB) through a revolving credit facility of GH cedis two million (20 billion cedis from Merchant Bank Ghana Limited. With the revolving credit, GRIB would purchase paddy rice from farmers, process it and supply it through the warehousing system to its clients across the country. The warehouse is also open to new clients all year round.

Mr. Debrah said this intervention was intended to increase the local rice production in future since rice production had stalled for some time now due to lack of market. The move is also to encourage Ghanaians to patronize and develop a special taste for the local rice, which would be available all year round at a fixed rate throughout the country from the distribution point.

Mr. Debrah said aside the Ghana School Feeding Programme that would henceforth lift its monthly requirements from the GRIB warehouse and pay GRIB/Merchant Bank Ghana Limited, other institutions such as the military, police and the other subvented organisations were also required to get their supplies from the GRIB warehouse.

"All these interventions would not work if Ghanaians do not patronize our locally produced rice," he said. "Our local rice is more nutritious than all the imported brands because of the lower duration of warehousing."

The Minister said to ensure that the quality of local rice was improved Government had donated a rice colour sorter machine to GRIB through the assistance of the French Embassy. "Additionally, over the past few years, Government has supported the local rice industry through the provision of rice millers with destoners, power tillers, tractors and water pumps." Mr Debrah said government was currently assisting farmers to produce more rice through the Inland Valley Rice Development and the New Rice for Africa (Nerica) variety.

Dr. Amoako Tuffour, Executive Chairman, Ghana School Feeding Programme, said the programme was currently being described as the best in the whole of Africa since about 1,000 schools had already been hooked onto the programme.

"We not only created jobs for many, but are also promoting the eating of locally grown food as well as ensuring that some malnourished school children had at least one nutritious food a day," he said. Dr. Tuffour said basically the concept of the programme was to help reduce post-harvest losses in the country and encourage farmers to produce more, since there was always a ready market for the produce. "Through this we also hope to ensure good health for the growing youth of our country." Mr. Ralp Mends-Odro, President of GRIBs, said the body intended to open a warehouse in every rice growing area so that the marketing of the produce would be easy and accessible to all clients. He said plans were underway to include all senior secondary schools to the supply chain of institutions to benefit from the GRIB warehousing system. The first consignment at the warehouse consisted of over 25,000 bags to be supplied to the Ghana School Feeding programme. 11 July 07