As part of measures to help increase rice production in the Jaman South constituency of the Bono region, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Williams Okofo-Dateh, has started a pilot rice production project.

Under this project, the MP seeks to get more youth interested in rice cultivation through appropriate modern farming technologies, packaging and marketing techniques. 

To this end, the MP supplied 33 bags of 45 kilograms of rice seeds, three boxes of weedicides and a box of Wellington boot to Abuokrom Rice Farmers Association in the area.

“After a careful research, I realized the need to invest in the rice production sector to provide jobs and food for Jaman South,” Mr Okofo-Dateh revealed in an interview with JoyNews’ Nestor Kafui Adjomah in the Bono regional town of Drobo.

The Jaman South MP further explained he sent a delegation to meet the rice farmers a few months ago to learn at first hand the challenges militating against their operations and devise the best ways those challenges could be resolved.

The team, according to him, was also tasked to identify all the rice farmers who were producing rice in smaller quantities, identify the various communities and sites where rice farming was taken place in the constituency.

Mr Okofo-Dateh said, “we detected Jejemireja, Abuokrom, Nyamefie, Ampenkro, and Miremano communities as rice growing zones and saw it prudent to support the several farmers there to maximize production for local consumption and subsequently export to other parts of Ghana or probably outside the country”.

The Abuokrom Rice Farmers Association Chairman, Adariah Manu, expressed their gratitude to the MP since this has been the first time the association was benefiting from such support.

He appealed to the MP to get them with a rice miller in order to minimize the use manpower, adding “we urge you to liaise with our chiefs for release parcels of land for the purpose of rice production in the Jaman South.

Mr. Okofo-Dateh pledged to assist the rice farmers to procure a rice miller whilst providing them with agrochemicals such as fertilizers and funds for land preparation during the next planting season.