Hon. Abraham Dwumo Odoom, a former local government minister is the man behind Nigeria’s mass rice production. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) in 2016 at the Twifo Atti Morkwa in the Central Region from 2016 to 2020 on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He started the cocoa mass spraying in his constituency before President Kufuor became President of the republic. When he became the DCE, he became particular about the socio-economic wellbeing of his people who were mainly cocoa farmers; therefore he sought for support from the Cocoa Research Institute (CRI) which gave birth to cocoa high-tech that improved the standard of living of the cocoa farmers.
When President Kufuor lost the seat to the NDC, he started the Kufuor Foundation where he had an invite from the Liberian President, Helen Johnson, who requested that President Kufuor comes with the person who started the cocoa project to initiate similar one in Liberia and that is where Hon. Odoom realized the people consumed more rice but imports all from India.
‘’When I returned to Ghana, I designed a concept paper and showed it to President Kufuor and we decided to start an agricultural project in Africa. He had an award programme in Washington and I went with him. We sold the project idea, and got partnership from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and our aim was to educate and promote rice production in Africa. I was sent to Nigeria as the project lead. I realized they import rice but have large farm lands, water and human capital. I held a big meeting together with the Central Bank and other great key people in the agricultural sector”, he added.
He further stated that ‘’I introduced the idea of producing their own rice because they have the resources. I organized a program for the farmers on the re-organisation and re- orientation and we were all able to share ideas on how to make the sector lucrative. We told government to ban the import of rice and today Nigeria has become self-sufficient in rice production. Nigeria produces 9 million metric tonnes of rice annually’’.
Mr. Odoom is on another journey of making Ghana self-sufficient in rice production. He is a global icon.
Video below…