Story: News Desk 

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana has  asked  the government to urgently release additional funds to the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) to enable it to purchase surplus rice from local producers.

According to the Association, inadequate funding for NAFCO has left many farmers unable to sell their produce, forcing them to slash prices and incur heavy financial losses.

Speaking in reaction to reports of a rice glut, Acting Executive Director of the Association, Bismark Nortey, said NAFCO had received less than 10 percent of the funds it requested to undertake its procurement activities – a situation that has left large quantities of paddy rice unsold across the country.

“There are still rice farmers struggling to find buyers because NAFCO doesn’t have the financial capacity to absorb all the rice in the system. There are still rice farmers who are not getting buyers because NAFCO doesn’t have the capacity to absorb all the rice in the system,” he explained.

Mr. Nortey warned that if the issue persists, many farmers may abandon rice cultivation in the next planting season due to uncertainty over market access and poor returns.

“If this situation continues, many farmers will stop producing rice because they know their investments could go to waste. We are calling on the government and the President to urgently allocate more resources to NAFCO. The current funding is woefully inadequate,” he appealed.

The Association fears that without swift government intervention, the country’s progress toward rice self-sufficiency could be undermined, affecting both farmer livelihoods and national food security.