It is to help add value to rice production in the area.

Mr Williams Adum, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Kassena-Nankana Municipal announced this when he interacted with the media after a working visit to Gaani, one of the communities in the municipality earmarked for the construction of the factory.

The Kassena-Nankana Municipal in the Upper East Region, where the Tono Dam is situated is noted for its greater potentials in rice production, but for some time now, farmers in the area had been challenged with the lack of rice processing factory to help add value to their products after harvesting.

The MCE indicated that the factory would not only add value to the rice being produced in the area, but would also create employment for the teeming unemployed youth and attract more of them to go into agriculture, particularly rice cultivation.

Mr Adum, explained that the acquisition of the land for the factory was made possible with the support of Pe Dennis Aneakwoa Belinia Adda, the Paramount Chief of the Navrongo Traditional Area, and the factory was part of the government's industrialisation agenda.

Whilst commending the Paramount Chief for playing a significant role in the acquisition of the land for the project, the MCE assured the farmers that the factory, when completed would help add more value to the production of rice and to help boost its marketing.

He said one of the potentials of the area was rice and it was against this background that the Government through the Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP) with funding support from some development partners such as the USAID had signed Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese Company to rehabilitate the laterals of the Tono Irrigation Dam to help boost rice and cereal farming.

The MCE added that the government had awarded a number of roads linking farm areas to contractors and cited the Navrongo-Naga-Kologu roads as examples of some of the roads.

He said through the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs) initiative introduced by the Government, a lot of community members in the area particularly the youth in the last crop season ventured into farming of maize, sorghum and rice.

He noted that the PFJsled to food security in the communities, and empowered many of the farmers economically to improve on the nutritional status of families particularly women and children.

The MCE assured farmers that for this crop season, the Government through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) would put stringent measures in place to prevent the smuggling of farm inputs such as; fertilizers under the PFJs to  neigbouring countries for sale.