Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson has put forward a plan to amend Ghana’s public procurement rules so that state institutions must prioritise food bought from Ghanaian farmers for school feeding programmes. The proposal seeks to turn the government’s large annual spending on meals into a reliable market for domestic producers struggling with gluts of rice, meat, tomatoes and other staples.
The idea is straightforward and economically appealing. Ghana spends roughly GH¢5 billion every year on feeding under Free Senior High School and the broader school feeding programme. Of the Free SHS budget alone, which stands at about GH¢5 billion, feeding accounts for roughly half.
Yet farmers continue to report surplus produce that goes unsold while contractors supply schools with imported alternatives.
“Why can’t we use government purchasing power [and the] procurement law to stop the importation of food to feed our school children?” Ato Forson stated. He added that the time has come to use the law “to force those who are spending to buy from our farmers.”
The current Public Procurement Act already allows some preference for locally made goods, but the margin is modest and competitive open tendering remains the dominant route. Under the proposed changes, schools and other public buyers would face a clearer obligation to source domestically.
The government argues this would create steady demand, reduce pressure on foreign exchange, support rural incomes and generate jobs.
A Familiar Ambition With A Stronger Legal Push
President John Dramani Mahama has previously directed schools to buy only locally produced rice, maize, chicken and eggs, tasking agencies such as the Ministry of Education, the Free SHS Secretariat and the National Food Buffer Stock Company with enforcement. The Finance Minister’s latest comments go further by focusing on amending the procurement framework itself so that the preference becomes harder to ignore.
In principle, the policy aligns fiscal spending with agricultural development. Public institutions become large, predictable buyers. Farmers gain outlets for their harvest. The domestic food system receives a structural boost instead of remaining secondary to imports.
Why Good Intentions Have Stumbled Before
Implementation, however, has repeatedly run into practical and political barriers. Many contracts under school feeding and Free SHS require suppliers to pre-finance purchases or accept only partial mobilisation payments. Contractors must therefore have working capital or access to credit. Importers and large traders often hold that advantage: they can obtain 30-day credit from overseas suppliers or finance bulk shipments themselves.
Local farmers and small aggregators typically cannot offer equivalent terms. A supplier risking their own money naturally prefers the source that gives them cash-flow flexibility and reliable volume.
Past attempts to lock in local procurement have met resistance from well-resourced importers whose businesses depend on bringing in rice, poultry, meat and other staples. Some of these operators maintain close ties to political networks and can lobby effectively against rules that shrink their market.
When enforcement is weak, or exemptions are granted, the preference for local produce quietly erodes and imports resume.
The result has been a pattern familiar to observers of Ghanaian agricultural policy: announcements that generate optimism among farmers, followed by incomplete delivery once the practical difficulties of pre-financing, logistics, quality consistency and vested interests assert themselves.
What Success Would Actually Require
Amending the law is only the first step. For the reform to bite, government would need to address the financing gap, perhaps through targeted credit guarantees, buffer-stock arrangements or faster payment cycles that reduce the need for heavy pre-financing.
It would also need transparent monitoring to prevent side-deals and political interference, plus realistic standards for quality, packaging and delivery schedules that local producers can meet at scale.
Without those complementary measures, the risk is that another well-intentioned directive becomes another policy that looks good on paper but fails to shift spending on the ground. The GH¢5 billion annual outlay is large enough to transform local agriculture if it is genuinely redirected.
The political will to confront the financing realities and the lobbying power of import interests will determine whether this latest push delivers lasting results or joins the list of promising ideas that never fully materialised.
