Rice on High Demand But Local Production is Only 30%

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Tự Hào Gentraco

Tue, 07/02/2012 - 5:08 am.

Rice on High Demand But Local Production is Only 30%

With a population growth rate of 2.5% and an annual demand growth rate of 8.9%, Ghana would have to secure the supply of over 1.65 million tons of rice annually by 2015 to be able to meet the ever increasing demand of the most imported cereal into the country.Currently, demand for the commodity stands at some 600,000 metric tons and counting. On the average, every Ghanaian is said to consume some 38kg of rice per annum. This is expected to increase to 63.0kg by 2015. One of the reasons, according to experts, is that rice is easier to cook and for the ever increasing urban population nothing comes in handier.

But the worrying trend for some stakeholders in the rice value chain is that Ghana on its own, produces less than 30% of the demand. This evidently means that the bulk of the commodity consumed in the country is imported, costing the country some 500 million US Dollars of foreign exchange.

Local farmers have often argued that given the right incentives and the needed support by government they can produce to meet demand. But the challenges for these farmers are numerous. According to Baba Adongo of TechnoServe, factors like the lack of irrigation and processing facilities, poor extension services, leading to poor quality rice, continue to bog rice farmers down. Mr. Adongo says Ghana can produce rice that can compete in any part of the world if the country takes the necessary measures.

At a stakeholder conference on the rice value chain in Accra, members of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) said Ghana cannot continue to import rice in such large amounts while paying lip service to shoring up local production.

Some processers complained bitterly about the unavailability of basic machinery like destoners and quality sieves on the market. This, according to them, is the reason local rice tends to have stones in them. Mr. Valentine Okumah of Ottofio Foods said they are not looking for handouts from any one. "Make the machines available and we are ready to buy them," he said.Whilst commending government for re-imposing the tariffs on imported rice, some participants argued that more could still be done. According to Ibrahim Akalbila, Coordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition (GTLC), tariffs on imports are necessary at a certain stage in a country's movement towards self reliance. He said countries like the US and Japan have over the years used several indirect ways of imposing tariffs on rice importation such that their markets are not even attractive to importers. He said Japan, for example, has a tariff of about 490% on rice importation. "This is because it wants to protect its industries." He also said it costs highest to import rice into the United States.