The stabilisation of the Ghana cedi, widely celebrated as a macroeconomic achievement, is producing an unintended casualty: the Ghanaian smallholder farmer. According to Wepia A. Awal Adugwala, National President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, the stronger cedi has made imported rice and other food commodities cheaper on the local market than domestically produced alternatives, leaving farmers who have successfully harvested produce unable to find buyers.
Adugwala described the situation as a structural paradox in which consumers, faced with a price gap at the point of sale, are gravitating toward foreign produce and effectively “shipping jobs and investments” to competing countries, pushing Ghanaian farmers further below the poverty line. He warned that this dynamic cannot be allowed to continue if the country is serious about agricultural transformation, stressing that the cost environment facing local farmers makes price competition with imports nearly impossible under current conditions.
The cost structure underpinning the crisis is, in his assessment, a product of systemic neglect. Ghanaian farmers operate under significantly high borrowing costs, as banks consider agriculture a high-risk lending area, while inputs including fertiliser, agrochemicals, and tractor services are largely imported and priced accordingly. When land rental and labour costs are added, the total cost of production leaves local rice, meat, and other commodities unable to compete on price with imports from countries where agricultural lending rates can be “almost one percent” or even lower. He noted that this competitive disadvantage is not a reflection of quality but of policy failure.
Adugwala called on the government to urgently establish a data-driven framework that maps domestic production capacity against national food demand before any import licences are granted. In his view, the gap between what Ghana produces and what it consumes should be the only basis on which importers are permitted to bring in food commodities. Opening the market without such a mechanism, he argued, renders local farmers structurally uncompetitive and undermines the country’s long-term food security. He cited rice, maize, meat, and onions, with the latter sourced heavily from Niger and Nigeria, as among the most affected commodities requiring immediate attention.
On the question of institutional procurement, Adugwala was unequivocal in his call for the government to enforce the President’s directive that all Senior High Schools must source their foodstuffs locally. He identified the Buffer Stock Company, which manages food supply under the free senior high school programme, as the key enforcement point. No contractor operating under that framework, he insisted, should be permitted to import rice or maize when local supply is available. Strict enforcement of this directive, he argued, would provide smallholder farmers with a reliable and sustained domestic market, creating the commercial foundation they need to sustain their operations and scale production.
He emphasized that smallholder farmers account for between 70 and 80 percent of all foodstuffs sold in Ghanaian markets, making their economic viability a matter of national food security rather than sectoral concern alone. Alongside the procurement enforcement call, he renewed the Association’s appeal for a dedicated credit desk within the Agricultural Development Bank for smallholder farmers, with disbursement channels extended through rural banks and Ghana Commercial Bank to reach farming communities that remain beyond the reach of formal financial institutions.
