Permit me to express how glad I am to attend events such as this, events that seek to promote and preserve our Ghanaian dishes must be supported with all might. The very essence of this event is core to the mandate of the Centre for National Culture as we are mandated to maintain the unique cultural identity and values for the promotion of an integrated national culture, as well as to contribute to the overall economic development of Ghana.
All present, today marks the final day of the Women’s Expo event and organizers have in their wisdom dedicated it to the preparation, celebration and feasting of our indigenous cuisines. Before I proceed any further, I will employ all to listen keenly as I pontificate this rather short speech around age-old sage thought out by the great visionary and revered historian Professor Ali Mazrui.
He said; ”AFRICANS CONSUME WHAT THEY DO NOT PRODUCE AND PRODUCE WHAT THEY DO NOT CONSUME”
My brothers and sisters present, it is sad and a grave tragedy in gigantic proportions that the words of the great Ali Mazrui still festers and is valid in our country today. We as Ghanaians have developed an insatiable appetite for the consumption of imported foods ranging from cooking oil, rice, wheat, chicken, eggs, fellows pepper, salt and even tomatoes.
A publication sighted in the BFT dated 6th July 2022 revealed by the ministry of finance that Ghana’s essential food import hit US$2bn annually. There is a sense that our inability to feed ourselves as a nation is tied down to our penchant and inordinate taste for imported foods but not the inability of our lands to produce enough to make us food sufficient.
The last time I checked, Ghana is blessed with arable lands in abundance suitable for agriculture, in fact, down south, rain-fed farming supports an all-year-round agriculture pattern so it can not be the case that our overly dependent on imported foods is tied down to unavailability of land for agricultural purposes, rather, it is simply and squarely our lust for foreign goods.
I am no prophet, but I can tell that in most of our homes, it is the sultana, the cindy, the Mr. Rabbit Jasmine, the fortune, the Vietnam rice but not the edumawura rice, the Zinaria rice among a host of locally produced rice. Ali Mazrui ”Africans produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce”
As I look around, I see how tables are set with mostly our local ingredients to prepare some of our local dishes for exhibition and consumption. Our children of today know and better prefer Indomie to our tumbaani, kpogulo, mgolololo, and koose among others. They demonize our local dishes and canonize these foreign foods. It is said in the corridors of the wall that only the unenlightened and poor eats our local cuisines and they, the enlightened children of Queen eats the KFCs, the Chicken Republics, the Subway the McDonalds, and Domino’s pizza among others.
The tragedy is that we have long been delusional in expressing rather profound mental ignorance when we trash our local Ghanaian dishes to the glorification of aforementioned foreign dishes. Liking such an attitude, the medics will term you as suffering from schizophrenia, a disorder that affects a person’s ability to think, feel and behave clearly.
Truth is, our indigenous dishes are incomparable in terms of taste, nutritional quality and health-wise. The best doctors will attest to this. The problem wrong with some Ghanaians is that we are suffering from the lost identity which is birthed as a result of an inferiority complex. It is however not lost upon us to cherish and love our own, to be proud and happy in finding nourishment from our local cuisines, and to make it a routine in consuming made in Ghana dishes most if not all the days of our lives.
Throughout the ages, the battle has always been the battle of the mind. If we deal with the excesses of our thoughts and begin to act locally and think globally, there will be a boom in our local economic development which will guarantee better economic development in freedom with opportunities and jobs for all. Agriculture remains the backbone of our economy and if we all continue to consume what we produce, that is inextricably tied down to the growth of our economy.
I sincerely what to thank the organizers of this event for setting up this food bizarre competition and call on all event organizers, hotels and chop bars in and around the region to make it a point to have your menus dominate with Ghanaian dishes.
It is said that, ”To whom much is given, much is expected. The Centre expects a turnaround in our dishes preference.
Thank You.
