The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has organised a two-day training course for 40 rice traders from four districts in Ashanti at Mankranso in the Ahafo-Ano South district under the Inland Valley Rice Development Project. It was aimed at equipping them with them with the capacity to improve marketing strategies for selling locally produced rice, entrepreneurship skills and credit repayment management. The workshop for the participants from the Tano South, Ejisu-Juaben, Ahafo-Ano North and South districts formed part of the programme of MOFA for rice traders in Ashanti, parts of Brong-Ahafo and Eastern Regions. They were taken through the role of traders in a sustainable local rice economy, stages in rice milling and recovery, losses in handling paddy and milled rice, records keeping, rice marketing and utilization of milling by-products, among other topics. Mr Charles Tandoh, a Post-Harvest and Marketing Specialist on the Project, who led the discussions, urged the participants to observe the product, price, place and promotion as useful tools for success. He emphasised that quality, protection, packaging, income and expenditure assessment, attractive market centres, advertisement and aggressive selling could promote the locally produced rice on the competitive market. Mr Alfred Amo, the Ahafo-Ano South District Director of MOFA, called on the participants to impart the knowledge acquired to their colleagues who could not attend.Source: GNA