WFP to purchase locally produced rice from farmers in Northern Ghana
The World Food Programme (WFP) is to purchase locally produced rice from farmers in the Northern Region to feed some 150,000 school children under the School Feeding Programme.
Mr. Ismail Omer, WFP Country Director, said this in Tamale on Tuesday in a speech read on his behalf at the second phase of training for farmer organizations participating in the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative.
The P4P programme is aimed at increasing smallholder farmers’ income in order to reduce poverty, hunger and malnutrition among vulnerable people.
The participants included 16 maize producing farmer organizations in Ejura Sekyedumasi District in the Ashanti Region and 10 rice producing farmers’ organizations in the Tamale Metropolis and the Tolon-Kumbungu District in the Northern Region.
The P4P programme has benefitted some 1,344 small holder farmers as well as low-income farmers from the first phase of training, 514 metric tonnes of maize from farmers in the Ejura area, while some 10 farmer organisations from the Northern Region had also been provided with 30 energy stoves.
The farmers would be trained on P4P Forward Contracts and the important components of the post –harvest value chain for rice and beans.
Mr. Omer said the first phase of the workshop organized last year gave farmers extensive training in technical, business and organizational development, which benefited some 26 farmer organizations.
He said some equipment, which included 10 rice reapers, 10 rice threshers and 524 tarpaulins, were given to farmer groups in the Northern Region in April.
He said in Ejura-Sekyedumasi, weighing scales, stitching machines, polysack bags, polysack closing thread and 820 tarpaulins were given to the farmers.
Mr Omer said the WFP was also working with some partners to provide the farmers with an improved paddy rice parboiling vessel.
The second phase of the training would train farmers on soil conservation to improve the soil fertility in northern Ghana and practices that can help improve crop yield.
The farmers would also be trained on how to get access to profitable markets and how to use deposits as collateral to get financial aid, which is known as the Warehouse Receipt System.
The main aim of this is to make farmers understand warehouse practices and grading and storage that would enable them to deliver their produce to the Ghana Grain Council certified ware house.
Source: GNA