The Federal Government, operating through the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), has officially registered 45 accredited Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) to purchase excess grains from farmers across major domestic production hubs.
The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr John Dumelo, disclosed the strategic intervention on the floor of Parliament, noting that the immediate mop-up campaign is engineered to clear the current severe market glut of maize and rice.
The policy briefing was delivered in response to an urgent parliamentary question regarding the crashing prices of locally cultivated grains and the immediate interventions being deployed to safeguard rural livelihoods.
Mr Dumelo warned that a failure to decisively resolve the ongoing supply imbalance would discourage smallholders from sustaining local grain cultivation, thereby threatening national food security.
The Ministry is deploying a comprehensive structural mix of direct field purchasing, processing expansion, and enhanced strategic storage under the umbrella of the national Feed Ghana programme.
To structurally absorb the excess yields, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is collaborating with international donor partners to rapidly upgrade the country’s agrarian infrastructure. The joint initiative involves the complete refurbishment of dilapidated state storage warehouses and the direct procurement of modern moisture-testing and grain-handling equipment.
These technical upgrades will significantly expand NAFCO’s operational holding capacity, allowing the agency to purchase, dry, and safely preserve larger volumes of food grains for long-term national emergency reserves.
As part of long-term industrialisation strategies to prevent future harvest gluts, the Deputy Minister announced that the government is establishing five new specialised maize-processing factories across key agricultural zones.
Furthermore, Mr Dumelo highlighted that a strict executive directive has been issued requiring all state institutions, including school feeding programmes and security agencies, to give absolute priority to locally produced rice and maize, ensuring a guaranteed off-taker market for domestic producers.
Source: Ghanian Times
Image Credit: Modern Ghana
