“Up-RICE-ing”! JOHN DUMELO ACTIVATES GHANA’s RICE INVESTMENT ACTION PLAN

“The transformation of Ghana’s rice sector cannot be achieved by Government alone. It requires strong partnerships among policy makers, researchers, financial institutions, development partners, private investors, processors, traders, and our hardworking farmers”, said Hon John Dumelo, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture (MoFA) at the Validation Workshop of the National Rice Investment Action Plan (NRIAP) in Accra. The exercise, which was chaired by Deputy Minister, was held with a view to securing multi-stakeholder ownership of the NRIAP.

Grinding Machinery

The National Rice Investment Action Plan spells out critical interventions across the rice value chain, including: seed systems, irrigation development, mechanisation, research and varietal development, milling and quality upgrading, and inclusive financing. This validation exercise therefore ensembled representatives across government, private sector, development partners, research institutions, and farmer organisations, to evaluate its realistic viability for implementation. Among the issues reviewed by the team for validation were: fertiliser marketing, distribution and usage, seed system; research, technology development and transfer; harvesting, post-harvest and marketing; community mobilisation, farmer-based organisations and credit management; equipment access and maintenance; irrigation and water control.

Grain Drain

Mr. Harry Bleppony, Deputy Director of the Crops Services Directorate, MoFA, explained that over the years, Ghana has made measurable progress in expanding rice production areas, promoting improved seed varieties, strengthening extension delivery, and encouraging private sector participation in milling and marketing. However, persistent gaps remain across irrigation development, input accessibility, post-harvest management, quality standards, and structured marketing systems. The NRIAP, he said, has been developed to respond directly to these gaps.

‘sTeam’ Work

A warmly interwoven teamwork exists directly from the regional through to the national levels. At the regional level, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has adopted and ratified a Regional Rice Roadmap (2025–2035), aimed at accelerating rice self-sufficiency across member states. In line with this, as with other participating country, Ghana on its part developed a National Rice Investment Action Plan (NRIAP) to align national priorities with the Regional Rice Roadmap and translate strategic objectives into costed, time-bound, and investment-ready actions. In her overview of the regional implementation roadmap, Boladale Oluyomi Abiola Adebowale Head of the ECOWAS Rice Observatory (ERO), projected that all the firm commitments by partners would be consolidated by the end of this year.

More Grist!

Stressing the need for coordinated regional and national action, Suril Dahiya Senior Program Officer of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) stressed that, “Rice is certainly a strategic commodity and food crop in Africa and particularly West Africa. The continued dependence on imports exposes our economies to global volatility and drains our foreign exchange resources.  Strengthening domestic rice systems is therefore essential for food security, economic resilience and rural employment.” In a call for coordinated and sequenced investments across public and private sectors, Dahiya prompted the team that it is one thing to have good plans, well documented in very nice folders; and another, to implement them on the ground.”