Ho, Feb. 2, GNA - Mr Samuel Kanga, the General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress has said promoting imported edibles in Ghana was a threat to the health of the people.

He said it was a pity that the use of canned tomatoes, with artfully packaged promotional messages, was catching on in many homes when some brands were only 25 percent tomato and the rest sugar and other additives.

Mr Kanga was opening a day's workshop for policy makers on trade policy and food security with special emphasis on rice production. It was organized under the union's Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Programme (SARD). Participants included District Chief Executives and District Directors of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture from seven districts in the Volta Region.

Mr Kanga said efforts at food self-sufficiency were being undermined by the influx of cheap imported agricultural produce that was gradually making local farmers poorer.

He said as a result of the World Trade Organization policies, which govern the lopsided international trade practice, rice from heavily subsidized sources, were being dumped in Ghana. "This is threatening to destroy the livelihoods of thousands of farming families."

Mr Kanga called on district assemblies to join in the fight to champion the interests of local farmers.

He suggested to assemblies to initiate pro-farmer policies that would eventually merge into national polices. Mrs Glowin Kyei-Mensah, Project Coordinator, said the workshop objective was to amplify the voice of farmers and to get them organized to continually engage policy makers in discussing trade policies that affected rice production.

She said rice farmers at Afife, Ashaiman, Dawhenya, Asutuare, Botanga, Colinga and Tono, had been sensitized to advocate for their interests.

Mr Andrews Addoquaye Tagoe, Head of Programmes of SARD, said it was unfortunate that some developed countries still gave some form of subsidies to their farmers while the same policy had been cancelled in developing countries.