The Northern Caucus of Parliament has announced an initiative to scale up commercial rice production in the northern enclave as part of efforts to create jobs for the youth.
As part of the programme, six Municipal and District Chief Executives, together with selected traditional leaders, will be sponsored to Kenya to study the country’s commercial rice production model.
Additionally, Ghanaian investors will facilitate a similar trip for members of the caucus to Vietnam to learn advanced rice-processing techniques to enhance production capacity and improve processing standards in the northern zone to attract investment into Ghana’s rice value chain.
The Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, revealed the initiative during an engagement with members of the Diplomatic Corps on Tuesday, November 4.
“We have invited the six municipal and district chief executives. And we are sending them this weekend to Kenya, which also has a huge rice production industry on a very large scale. And the DCEs and some chiefs from those locations are going to Kenya this weekend to study the commercial production of rice.
He added, “And we, as the Caucus, also invited some of the rice importers to try to understand what we can do in the north to have them take the rice from us instead of importing it. And the importers suggested that they would like to take us to Vietnam, where they take their rice from, so that we see what Vietnam is doing, which makes them go there to pick the rice, and if we could replicate such practices here. So the importers are funding us to take, you know, one major chief in each of the regions.
“So in all, about five very senior chiefs to Vietnam to see how they have organised themselves to produce rice and see how we can structure it, and they can do the off-taking from us and guarantee the market, so that we can also work our way to encourage investments in those rice valleys.”
