Vice Chair of the Competitive Africa Rice Platform, Dr Ama Aning Oppong-Duah, says Ghana’s rice farmers are still battling with unsold stock from last year, while another harvest season has already begun.

“We still have unsold rice from last year, and more is coming in,” she said on JoyNews’ PM Express on Wednesday.

According to Dr Oppong-Duah, the problem began about a year ago when farmers produced at a time when he dollar was high.

They purchased fertiliser, seed, and other inputs at a certain rate. But after harvesting, the cedi started appreciating, which made imported rice cheaper.

“So when that happened, then it became cheaper for people to bring in rice, foreign rice,” she explained.

“And so people brought in cheap foreign rice. Farmers had produced at a certain cost, and the foreign rice became cheaper.”

She added that the situation worsened because the National Buffer Stock Company was in transition due to a change in government.

“They weren’t buying as they were supposed to. So there was quite a little bit of a murky situation at the time,” she said.

As a result, many farmers were left with rice that no one was buying. “The people, of course, were buying the cheaper imports that had come into town,” she lamented.

Dr Oppong-Duah said, despite that setback, farmers planted again this year following a new government directive and access to seeds and fertiliser. But now, with the new harvest coming in, the old stock remains.

“We are now in the harvesting season,” she said. “And now there’s the rice sitting from last year because we haven’t been able to sell, and there’s more rice coming in.”