Global food markets are walking a tightrope, and the latest data from the International Food Policy Research Institute shows just how uneasy the balance has become. By September 2025, 17 countries were enforcing 27 export-limiting measures on food and fertilizer, proof that governments are still reaching for trade controls long after the initial shocks of COVID-19 and the Ukraine crisis.
But the interesting twist is how these controls now look. Gone is the early-era panic of outright bans across entire product lines. Today, the world is seeing something more calculated: export taxes, licensing requirements, quotas, and narrowly targeted restrictions. These are not the emergency brakes of 2020, these are long-running strategies, quietly reshaping global food flows.
And Ghana is a clear example of how far this trend has spread.
In August 2024, Ghana introduced export bans on maize, rice, and soybeans, a policy that was expected to be temporary but now stretches all the way through December 2025. It places Ghana squarely alongside larger players like India, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, all of whom feature in the Tracker with their own mix of taxes, bans, and licensing conditions.
What emerges from the Tracker’s table is a picture of a world trying to shield itself from uncertainty, sometimes defensively, sometimes opportunistically.
- India is protecting domestic supplies of sugar and rice through bans and export taxes.
- Russia has turned to a matrix of taxes across wheat, barley, and maize.
- Turkey continues to clamp down on staples like potatoes, onions, sunflower oil, and seeds.
- Across southern Africa, countries including Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, and Nigeria have locked down maize exports.
Each government is acting rationally from its own vantage point: defend supplies, stabilise prices, avoid political backlash. But collectively, the system becomes more fragile. When so many countries restrict, the few left open face pressure, global prices distort, and supply chains tighten.
This is the quiet drama the Tracker captures, not panic, but persistence.
For Ghana, the story is particularly significant. The August 2024 restrictions place the country among a cohort of nations turning to trade controls as a protective shield, even as the global economy attempts to recover its footing. In a world where export restrictions can reshape markets overnight, Ghana now sits on a policy lever that has both domestic implications and international ripples.
What the Tracker ultimately shows is not just a list of trade measures; it reveals an evolving strategy. Countries may no longer be slamming the brakes, but they are still tapping them often enough to jolt the system. And as 2025 heads toward its close, export controls remain one of the most potent, and risky, tools shaping global food security.
