Minister of Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong, has indicated that the government may consider importing selected grains to supplement existing supplies following the severe drought in Northern Ghana.
In an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face on Channel One TV, the Minister revealed that the country is planning to import primarily rice and maize to address potential shortages and ensure food security amid the ongoing drought in the northern regions. "We want to deal with it at a bilateral level, so we are talking to country to country level, to get supplies.
We are looking at maize and rice mainly, those are the two that we intend to bring in." According to him, the government plans to import 300,000 metric tonnes of grains.
He highlighted various sources, including food warehouses and the ECOWAS Grains Reserves, which they intend to tap into.
The Minister anticipated a gap of 600,000 metric tonnes of grains, which the government aims to fill within three weeks. "We have some stock, we also have what we call project stocks, and project stocks are largely stocks, for example, we have SALEM which gives inputs in the North, which we're doing with the African Development Bank.
When SALEM gives you stock, you pay back in crops.
And we have quite some stocks in our warehouses. "So, we're going to release this one on the markets, the government's stock, we're going to put back on the markets.
We contribute to the ECOWAS Grains Reserves, for maize, rice and others.
We have one in Ghana, which is controlled by Buffer Stock.
So that Grains Reserve, we are going to tap into it. "The gap is what we intend to bring in, which gap we're sure that if we commit to importing about 300,000 metric tonnes on a government's side we should be able to scale it."