Rice growers at Ohiamadwen, a predominantly farming community in the Shama district of the Western Region, have called on the ruling National Democratic Congress to adopt and implement strategies that would ensure that government agencies comply with directives on the Institutional Pool Purchase initiated by the erstwhile New Patriotic Party government.

By so doing, agencies and organisations such as the Ghana Prisons Service, Ghana Education Service and Health Training Colleges would be compelled to purchase locally produced rice for consumption.

The Kufuor-led administration in September 2002 issued a circular urging government agencies to purchase locally produced rice through a National Buffer Stock to be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture.

The rationale behind this Pool was to provide a guaranteed market for local rice but the growers maintain this directive is not being complied with.
According to the farmers, non-compliance with the directive has contributed immensely to the numerous problems facing the rice industry.

At a press conference organised by the Ohiamadwen Rice Growers Association in conjunction with Friends of the Nation, an environmental Non-governmental Organisation in Takoradi Wednesday, the secretary, Nana Akorligah Kwofie, said other problems like trade liberalisation, inadequate subsidies to rice farmers, low technology adoption, and over reliance on rain fed agriculture were also having an adverse impact on the industry.

"It is obvious that with these problems, production cost will be high and this would also impact on the price and quality of locally produced rice,” he added.

Nana Kwofie contended that majority of the rural folks who are major producers of food crops, live in extreme poverty as a result of unfair competition arising from influx of heavily subsidised and therefore cheap produce from foreign countries

He said it would therefore not be out of place if government interventions like promotion of effective post-harvest technology, establishment of a well-organised nation-wide distribution network for locally produced rice as well as an aggressive advertising campaign to encourage its consumption are undertaken.

The Ohiamadwen Rice Growers Association, founded in 1997, currently has one hundred members.