Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Majeed Haroun has challenged the World Bank Country Director, Peter Harold over his comments that Ghana is not competitive in the production of rice. Mr. Harold told the BBC Television that Ghana has no business engaging in rice production because the country does not have any competitive advantage compared to countries like Thailand.

He was reacting to the frustrations of a chief in the Northern Region who complained on a BBC TV documentary about the effects of the IMF/ World Bank policies on rice farming. The chief was also concerned about the removal on subsidies on agriculture whilst countries in Asia and America still enjoyed subsidies. But the World Bank official described the two situations as different.

Obviously unhappy with these comments, the deputy Agriculture Minister, challenged Mr. Harold to let the World know the competitiveness of the subsidy-based foreign rice production as compared to Ghana’s unsubsidised production.

Speaking at the launch of three brands of locally produced rice, Dr Haroun described Mr. Harold’s comments as unfair and said a country like Japan has been told to patronize expensive Japanese beef rather than cheaper foreign supplies, adding that there is still a case to encourage domestic rice production. The three new brands of locally produced rice – Goldstar, Silver Line and Omo Tuo were produced by the Kpong Irrigation Project and distributed by IMEXCO Ghana Limited.