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Solace Ewoenam Ekpedzor popularly known as “Ewoe” of 2014 Ghana’s Most Beautiful fame is tremendously putting up an effort which has a direct link with government’s quest aimed at heightening the production and patronage of locally produced rice.
The beauty queen as part of her project to encourage women and young people in the growing and consumption of local rice,has established Ewoe Brands Limited, which is into production, processing and packaging of organic local rice under the brand name ewoe organic rice and foods.
The highly nutritious organic rice and brown rice tom brown packaged in mini bags are currently the mark of her accomplishments since the inception of the project.
As a young entrepreneur, she works with more than 1000 rice farmers across all the districts in Oti region aside women who are into cooperate groups.
When questioned by on what inspired her to opt for such a venture right after acquiring MSc Project Management 2019 from Southampton University-United Kingdom coupled with her working experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she underlined that though Oti region is highly endowed with farmers who are into the cultivation of local rice, she realized that challenges including poor processing, poor packaging, lack of machinery were affecting patronage hence the dwindling of their financial gains.
She underlined the foregoing canker as the cause of low patronage of locally produced rice in the region and Ghana as a whole.
Ewoenam told this medium in an exclusive dialogue that she therefore saw the need to initiate and kick-start the project in her district (Jasikan) as a way of addressing the situation, use that as a conduit to create job opportunity for youth in her area and cut down Ghana’s over-reliance on imported rice.
Her decision was to again challenge young graduates to quit over-relying on white-colour jobs and embrace farming as an alternative profession.
In her statement, she called on the President His Excellency Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo to implement more policies that will harness the production and patronage of rice produced locally in Ghana and also whip up the interest of the youth to take up farming as a profession.
Ghana President, Nana Akufo Addo and the Hon Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon Dr. Owusu Afriyie are creating various viable youth agribusinesses.
The Ghana Agricultural Investment Program (GASIP) under MOFA is supporting young men and women with inputs and equipment to make agriculture viable and youth-friendly. Ewoe, the Beauty Queen, of 2014 Ghana’s Most Beautiful 1st Runner-up fame, is one of the beneficiaries of the thousands of youth supported under GASIP.
She is helping other young people to grow rice. She buys from them and process the rice to boost local rice consumption.
She is poised to play the role of ‘youth-influencer’, encouraging the youth to take up agriculture as viable business that employs other young people.
“The time to be a farmer is now. The business environment is good for agribusiness under the current regime. Create job for yourself in agriculture and get out of youth unemployment. Make money from agriculture. There is also fun in agriculture”, she underlined.
Source:Enock Akonor Kumasi
