The Volta Rice Fair, to be held from 9th to the 13th of October at the Ho Jubilee Park, would bring together rice producers, suppliers, and others from within the value chain of the world's favourite grain.

Mr William Dzamefe, the Regional Director of Agriculture said to GNA the Volta Region remained the leading producer of rice in the country with 23 per cent of the nation's total output, and that the fair was part of strategies to market its potentials to the outside world.

He also said the Region possessed hundreds of seed varieties and had skilled growers and numerous growing technologies; therefore, the event should help establish the needed linkages to flourish the entire rice value chain.

The Regional Agricultural Director said there would be symposiums and talk shows on the rice industry and its prospects and revealed that the special attraction would be a dish based off cereal.

"The fair will cover anything concerning rice production, from machinery to the table. Because the Region is the leader in rice production in Ghana, it is something we want to display, and there are several varieties in the Region that are indigenous to certain geographic areas in the Region that we want to highlight.

Also, when it comes to commercial rice production the Region is doing extremely well. We are producing 23 per cent of the total rice produced in Ghana, and under the collaboration with the World Food Programme, we have done a lot of training in value addition. And so, and the groups that are being trained, we want to establish a market linkage for them. "We want to open a platform; an avenue for them to highlight whatever they have and then link the outside world by way of coming into contact with people and creating that market for their products," he said.

Volta Region's disposition as the leading rice producer is becoming more evident with the establishment of modern mills and the significant increase in the number of local rice brands on the market.

Rising cultivation lends credit to the government's efforts including the provision of engineered growing fields and dedicated flagship policies in agriculture that benefited the sector.

Ghana imports an estimated 500 million dollars' worth of rice every year, and local production, presently responding to sustainability efforts, being hoped upon to end the import dependency