As part of measures to control the heavy importation of rice, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Kennedy Osei Nyarko, has announced that starting January 2020, rice importers will require an import permit from the Ministry of Agriculture.

This initiative, the Minister said, seeks to support local rice farmers to have a leverage on the local market for their produce.

In a Facebook post, Kennedy Osei Nyarko said, “From January, 2020 Rice Importers will require import permit from the Ministry of Agric before they can import any rice into this country. It’s time for us to control Rice imports into the country.”

He also announced that rice importers have welcomed the idea of government’s plan to ban rice importation in 2022.

“When we communicated plans to ban the rice importation by 2022, the importers were happy. Their main challenge however is whether our current production capacity can meet demands to avoid going back,” he said.

The Agriculture Minister, in response, indicated that it would become a mirage if efforts were not made to scale up the production capacity of rice farmers in the country to meet the high demand for the commodity.

According to him, the country's annual rice consumption is 1.135 million metric ton annually as against the country’s production capacity of about 400,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture says its eyeing support from outside the country as part of its action plan to promote made in Ghana rice.

He explained that the effort by his outfit seeks to improve the production, marketing and consumption of Ghana-Made-Rice campaign which started in 2017 through the launch of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.