We have the capacity to feed ourselves

It is said that any person or group of persons who cannot feed themselves risk losing their dignity.

Many countries have, therefore, worked hard to feed their people and even export the surplus food to earn foreign exchange to undertake activities for which local substitutes cannot be obtained.

Again, those countries that do not have the facilities to promote food production latch onto the competitive advantages they have, so that they can earn income from them to import what they are unable to produce locally.

Our governments have tried to leverage our capabilities in agriculture so that we can produce in abundance to adequately feed the people, but those efforts have not yielded the desired results.

Perhaps we did not put in place the desired policies to attract the people to the land.

During the period 1973 to 1975 when the Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) programme flourished, Ghana was able to export rice and maize, at least, to some African countries.

Fortunately, we have the potential to produce rice to feed the people, but for some inexplicable reasons we have been unable to achieve that objective.

It is for this reason that the Daily Graphic commends the Global Agricultural Development Company (GADCO) and the Finatrade Group for inaugurating a rice mill at Sogakope in the Volta Region to produce three million tonnes of paddy rice.

Projects such as that will not only make available rice at comparatively cheaper prices but also create jobs for the teeming youth who are interested in taking to farming.

We know that the Finatrade Group is one of the companies involved in the importation of huge quantities of rice every year but we salute the company for its initiative to venture into local rice production 

The Daily Graphic , however, asks Finatrade to lead the crusade to increase rice cultivation in the country, so that sooner than later our reliance on rice imports or handouts from donors will become a thing of the past.

The present challenges facing the economy can only be addressed through increased productivity, instead of promoting the “buy-and-sell” syndrome.