Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in collaboration with Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Coalition for the African Rice Development (CARD) has launched a-five-day national workshop on rice and aquaculture for productivity increase and market development.
Speaking on the occasion, the Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Yaw Effah-Baafi, said Ghana includes the twelve countries being supported to develop a national strategy for rice by CARD.
According to him, the main objective of CARD is to assist Sub-Sahara African countries to double the production of rice from 14million to 28million metric tones within ten years.
“For us in Ghana, there cannot be any laudable vision than this, since rice in recent times has become a major food security crop and extremely important in the dishes of Ghanaian. Per capital consumption of rice has increased drastically affecting total demand in the country” He stressed.
The minister noted that Ghana’s self- sufficiency in rice is just about 30% and the gap is usually filled with huge imports annually (about US 450million dollars) similarly Aquaculture production has not increased 1% of total local fish production in Ghana.
Furthermore, capture fish production in Ghana accounts for over 95% of local fish supply. However, this continues decreases and thus necessitates huge fish imports to meet the shortfall.
Mr. Musa Saihou Mbenga a representative from FAO noted that a Special Programme for Aquaculture Development in Africa (SPADA) is being implemented in response to the NEPAD action for the development of African Fisheries and Aquaculture.
“SPADA’s objective is to accelerate aquaculture development in Africa to improve economic and rural development,” Mr. Mbenga stated.
According to him, FAO will collaborate with all other stakeholders to enhance the synergy and efficiency of the promotion and support all efforts by national Governments and Development Partners for sustainable intensification of rice and aquaculture production.
“It is our hope that such a combined effort will ensure food security and as well reduce poverty in the region” he emphasized.
Mr. Mbenga stated that FAO will be supporting the implementation of the National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS) and the Aquaculture Development for Ghana, through the provision of technical assistance and guidance.
“I believe this workshop will be a good opportunity to achieve the geol of the strategies with contributions from colleagues from ASEAN countries, as you may know, we have a lot of things to learn from Asian countries experience because they already achieve the same objectives as we have” Mr. Mbenga said.
On his part, Mr. Kiochi Kito, a Senior Resident Representative of JICA disclosed that, CARD harmonizes and coordinates on-going initiatives and facilitates resources and opportunities to match the needs of African rice producing countries.
“This workshop will further assist Ghana to put in place sustainable mechanisms for implementation of the strategies”, Mr. Kito said.
He continued that, the experience of ASEAN countries will be of immense important for the development of rice and aquaculture sectors in Ghana.
He called on the government and especially MoFA to endeavor to integrate the national rice development strategies (NRDS) into the national medium- term development policy framework such as Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan (METASIP).
STORY: CHARITY A. SACKITEY & ISAAC OBENG, PIJ INTERNS
