The School of Agriculture, University of Cape Coast (UCC) has joined the rest of the world to celebrate this year's World Food Day with a Farmers’ Market event.
This year's global theme for the celebration was "Safe Food Today for a Healthy Tomorrow."
Locally, the School marked the Day on the theme, “Leave no one behind" and it aimed at making food systems more resilient to withstand global volatility and deliver affordable and sustainable diets for all.
The Day is celebrated widely by many organizations concerned with food security, including the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Speaking at a Symposium ahead of the opening of the Farmers’ Market event, the honourable Central Regional Minister, Justina Marigold Assan, urged the public to prioritize food safety, stressing that the sector played a pivotal role in developing policies and regulatory frameworks in establishing and implementing effective food safety systems.
"That notwithstanding", she pointed out, “it was the collective responsibility of every Ghanaian to ensure that food safety was maintained at a standard that would improve the quality of the lives of our people."
Mrs. Assan expressed gratitude to the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for supporting the School of Agriculture. She said KOICA had also expressed its readiness to support Districts in the region to produce “Central Rice" in large quantities.
"When we talk about ‘Central Rice’, it is rice KOICA is supporting our local farmers to produce, well labeled with delicious taste" she added, "Very soon if you want to go into rice production, you need to come to Central Region for your quality rice seed."
The keynote Speaker, a former Member of Parliament for Twifo Atti-Morkwa Constituency, Mr. Abraham Dwuma Odum, called on Ghanaians to patronize local dishes derived from crops grown in Ghana to provide the much needed markets to farmers to ensure food security.
He said foreign foods and products such as polished imported rice posed a threat to health of consumers.
Mr. Odum, therefore, appealed to people to consume locally produced nutritious foods to avoid diseases associated with foreign processed food products.
He noted that Central Region had the capacity to produce rice for the country.
He said the Planting for Food and Jobs policy was very good; however, its design and execution had had a toll on its implementation.
The Central Regional Director of Agriculture, Dr. Peter Omega, in his remarks, asked policy makers to support policy measures to strengthen national food safety systems and ensure they comply with food safety systems, as well as engage in multi sectoral collaboration at the local, national, regional and global levels.
He said food businesses should comply with international food standards and engage employees, suppliers and other stakeholders to grow and develop a food safety culture.
The Symposium was chaired by the Dean of the School of Agriculture, Prof. Henry De-Graft Acquah.
As part of the event, a Farmers’ Market was held where patrons had the chance to purchase fresh produce.
Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC