The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has signed a new public–private partnership (PPP) agreement with FarmMate Ltd, aimed at significantly expanding domestic vegetable production, with a particular focus on tomatoes, as part of efforts to reduce Ghana’s reliance on imported produce and lower the national import bill.
Announcing the initiative, the sector minister, Eric Opoku, said the policy is designed to advance “revolutionary measures” in local vegetable production by scaling up investment and productivity across the value chain. The intervention sets an annual production target of 600,000 metric tons of tomatoes, positioning domestic supply to gradually replace a substantial share of imports.
The PPP framework is expected to strengthen commercial farming systems, improve aggregation, and support processing capacity to stabilize supply and reduce post-harvest losses. Eric Opoku described the arrangement as a step toward “reducing import dependency” while deepening local participation in the vegetable economy.
According to the minister, the initiative aligns manifesto priorities and reflects what he described as President John Dramani Mahama’s vision for a more resilient agricultural sector. He referenced “a strong and sustainable local vegetable supply chain” as a central policy objective underpinning the intervention.
The programme is also expected to focus on job creation across farming, logistics, storage, and agro-processing segments, with the government projecting wider employment effects as production volumes increase. The long-term aim is to strengthen the viability of Ghana’s vegetable industry while improving food security and price stability in domestic markets.
