The Chief Executive of Kent Farms, Richard Addison says, the government should consider a quota system concerning the restriction of some imported products including rice.
According to him, the country does not have the capacity to produce the needed rice to meet the demand of the nation.
In an interview on Western Echo, Mr Addison mentioned high prices of farm inputs in the cultivation of locally produced rice.
He opined that prices of rice on the market could be distorted due to a limited supply on the market.
” I think what the Minister is saying is okay but then to ban it completely, I think it’s wrong because we don’t have the capacity. Before you ban something you should have the capacity to produce yourself.
There is a rice we grow, and the demand for that rice is so much that it outstrips the supply. The moment you produce you sell anywhere.
It’s expensive because farm implements are expensive. If you come out and say, there is an outright ban on the importation of rice, we will struggle.
Ghana doesn’t have any price ceiling, and what will happen is that you will have people being ‘silly’ with the locally grown rice.
I think it’s a gradual seizure of the importation. Maybe a quota system the government might look at.”
Mr. Addison maintained that people consume locally-produced rice even though, the perception of locally-produced rice is exorbitant.
Mr. Addison further highlighted labour, availability of land, and the needed technology as some of the challenges rice farmers face in their production.
He called on the government to subsidize the prices of fertilizers for local rice farmers.
“I think sometimes it boils down to being Ghanaians. There is a Ghanaian gentleman in Nigeria who went to Nigeria to revolutionise rice production, and now Nigeria is importing less rice. These are people we need to talk to. The government needs to subsidise some of these fertilizers.”
The government is pushing to establish a regulation that will restrict the importation of what they call strategic products. Some items include rice, fruit juices, yemuadie, fish, cement, and some other 17 items.
