As families across Ghana prepare for the festive season, rice farmers are getting ready too. This year, the Chamber of Agribusiness wants Christmas meals to feature proudly grown Ghana rice which is fresh, nutritious, and produced by local hands.
To make this a reality, the Chamber has announced the Ghana Rice Christmas Sales Exhibition Week, scheduled from December 17 to 27, 2025 at the University of Ghana, Legon. The event aims to give consumers easier access to high-quality locally milled rice while showcasing the industry’s growing ability to meet international standards.
The Chamber said the exhibition is designed to highlight the “authentic taste, improved nutrition and world-class quality” of Ghana rice. It comes at a time when many households are seeking affordable, healthy, and reliable food options during the peak holiday season.
The 10-day exhibition will pool rice farmers, millers, processors, and distributors from across the country, providing a platform to promote different varieties and brands of Ghana rice. Beyond boosting sales, the initiative aims to strengthen consumer confidence in locally grown rice by demonstrating improvements in packaging, grain quality, and processing technology.
Supporting local rice, the Chamber emphasised, directly contributes to jobs, rural incomes, and national food security. Increased patronage during the festive period could provide strong momentum for domestic rice production in the coming year. The exhibition is expected to attract thousands of shoppers, students, families, and agribusiness players, all exploring the diverse offerings of Ghana’s rice value chain.
From Import Dependence to Export Potential
Yet, while initiatives like the Christmas exhibition are a step forward, Ghana’s rice industry still faces a bigger challenge: unlocking its full potential. After years of heavy rice importation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) believes Ghana can flip the script — from a rice-importing nation to a rice-exporting powerhouse — if it sets its sights higher and acts boldly.
For decades, Ghana has spent hundreds of millions of dollars importing rice, despite the food being a staple enjoyed daily by almost every Ghanaian household. According to a new IFS report, this reliance on imports persists even as domestic production has grown significantly — from just over 181,000 metric tons in 2008 to more than 530,000 metric tons by 2018. Yet, imports also nearly doubled over the same period, raising a critical question: why is Ghana growing more rice but still depending so heavily on foreign supply?
The IFS points to “low ambition” as the problem. While countries like Thailand and Vietnam have turned rice into billion-dollar export industries, Ghana has largely focused on meeting local demand. The institute urges the government to adopt a bolder vision, one that could transform Ghana into a major net exporter of rice within the medium term.
The Potential Is Huge
According to the IFS, Ghana has all the necessary ingredients: fertile land, labor, and climate. The country has an estimated 5.9 million hectares of land suitable for rice cultivation, yet less than 3 percent is currently used for this purpose. If Ghana could expand cultivation and achieve yields similar to Vietnam’s six tons per hectare, the country could produce about 35 million tons of rice annually, more than 25 times the current output.
Even more modest gains could be transformative. The IFS estimates that producing 7.4 million metric tons in 2022 could have allowed Ghana to export 6.6 million tons, earning billions in foreign exchange while fully meeting local demand.
The Ghana Rice Christmas Sales Exhibition is more than just a festive showcase: it’s part of a broader push to change Ghana’s rice narrative, encouraging citizens to eat local while inspiring policymakers to dream bigger. With sustained investment, strategic planning, and consumer support, Ghana could move from being an importer of rice to a proud exporter, creating jobs, boosting incomes, and strengthening food security across the nation.
