Japanese Govt presents equipment to farmers
The government of Japan has presented agricultural machinery to under-privileged rice farmers to help increase rice production and safeguard food security in the country.
Advertisement
The machinery – made up of 77 tractors, 49 power tillers, 20 rice threshers, 11 rice reapers and six rice mills – are valued at GH¢9.7 million
They were procured with a grant from the Japanese government and are to be distributed to the farmers on hire purchase basis.
They were presented to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) at a ceremony in Accra yesterday.
Presentation to MoFA
The Charge d’ Affaires of the Japanese Embassy in Ghana, Mr Shigeru Umetsu, said the initiative was to encourage modernisation in small-scale rice faming.
According to him, modernisation was key to achieving poverty reduction and accelerated growth in every sector of the economy.
“Among the wide variety of agricultural produce locally, rice requires urgent attention in terms of modernisation because in spite of rice being a staple food, the local industry heavily depends on imports while consumption is increasing due to urbanisation and sharp rise in population growth,” he said.
Mr Umetsu, therefore underscored the need to strengthen the domestic rice production and distribution system to safeguard food security in Ghana.
Other Trending Stories
He said the Japanese government had, since 1981, regarded the agricultural sector as a priority and one that could deepen the bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries.
He assured the Agric Ministry of Japan’s continued support for the sector.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, said the gesture would help national strides at increasing rice production, which had become a major staple cereal after maize.
Huge rice imports
Mr Kwetey said between 2006 and 2008 an average of 409,000 metric tonnes of rice worth US$168 million was imported to make up for the national deficit.
He said to promote and sustain the profitability of rice production, timely and easy access to appropriate agricultural machinery along the entire rice production value chain was necessary.
Describing the support from the government of Japan as timely and essential, he expressed the government’s gratitude to them for the continued support and cooperation.