Efforts at increasing local rice production to curb over-reliance on importation of the commodity to meet local consumption demand is being undermined by lack of adequate infrastructure, specifically rice processing mills in rice-producing communities of the country, Food and Agriculture Minister Alhaji Mohammed Limuna has indicated.

Currently, farmers in the three northern regions have their harvest for 2014/2015 farming seasons—thousands of bags of rice—locked up in warehouses due to the unavailability of mills to process the commodity, a situation that has compelled the farmers to use manual means of rice processing which do not meet market demand.

According to the minister, the situation is an impediment to government’s quest to motivate rice farmers into boosting local production of the commodity to cushion food security, aside from robbing the farmers of their primary source of livelihood.

He said: “Lack of rice-processing plants in the Northern Region is making it difficult to produce to feed the nation and produce quality rice that meets market specifications.

“The few in the region are defunct—a situation that has compelled government to continue spending huge sums of money to import similar goods to meet demands of the population. This is affecting income generation of the local rice farmers, aside from discouraging most of the farmers from venturing into the rice sector only to incur debt.”

The minister disclosed this when he toured Avnash Industries Ghana Limited—a rice processing factory at Nyankpala in the Tolon district of the Northern Region.

Avnash Industries Ghana Limited is the biggest rice processing factory in the West Africa sub-region, with the capacity to process about 500 metric tonnes of rice per day and an annual estimate of 180,000 metric tonnes.

Alhaji Limuna therefore appealed to management of the factory to help farmers by way of milling the rice for them to generate some revenue to reinvest into their farming activities.

He indicated that most farmers could not settle their debts secured from financial institutions due to their inability to sell their produce and alleviate poverty.

The minister however encouraged farmers to adopt modern technology to cultivate and harvest quality rice that will attract investors to buy and enable them to generate some income.

“If you continue to produce low standard rice it will deter investors and processing companies from accepting your produce, which is your only source of revenue,” he cautioned.

The Managing Director of Avnash Industries, Mr. Akshay Sharma, said the factory will mill the rice that has been kept in the warehouses for the farmers to sell in the open market, and that management will hold a meeting with the rice farmers to come out with the modalities.