The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) has called on the government to anchor its proposed US$10 billion New Economy Policy in agricultural value addition, warning that without processing, storage and reliable markets, increased production will merely deepen the losses that have long plagued Ghanaian smallholders.
The association’s Executive Director, Bismark Nortey, welcomed the inclusion of agriculture and agribusiness among the nine strategic pillars of the five-year policy, but said the details matter more than the headline figure. The government plans to deploy US$2 billion annually across sectors including textiles, pharmaceuticals, tourism and agriculture, with President John Dramani Mahama insisting the programme will be financed from domestic resources rather than borrowed funds .
“Any economic policy that does not have agriculture and agribusiness at the heart of it is a non-starter and it’s bound to fail,” Nortey said . “These investments must be able to unlock the agricultural sector, unlock the infrastructural deficits, unlock the marketing aspects, unlock value addition.”
From Harvest Gluts to Consumer Prices
The warning is grounded in a paradox that has defined Ghana’s agricultural season. Tomato farmers in parts of the Volta Region and around Ada have endured seasonal gluts so severe that many could not recover their costs, even as the Ghana Statistical Service recorded fresh tomato prices in September 2026 running 153.4% higher than a year earlier. Tomatoes alone accounted for 20.3% of the month’s 5.2% inflation rate . Farmers were losing money on produce that consumers elsewhere could barely afford—a gap PFAG attributes directly to the absence of storage, processing capacity and structured market linkages .
The association has pressed this argument before. In its World Food Day statement on 16 October, PFAG noted that rice and maize farmers face the same structural bind: bigger harvests that do not translate into better incomes because aggregation systems, drying equipment and predictable buyers are missing . The New Economy Policy, Nortey argues, must confront that reality rather than simply funding more seed and fertiliser.
The Feed Ghana Question
A central uncertainty is how the new policy will relate to Feed Ghana, the government’s flagship agricultural programme launched in April 2025. Feed Ghana already encompasses input distribution, mechanisation through Farmer Service Centres, and a sub-programme called Feed the Industry aimed at linking farmers to agro-processors . The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has distributed 40,000 bags of fertiliser and agricultural drones to farmer groups including PFAG, and is constructing a poultry processing centre at Bechem that is nearly 50% complete .
Nortey said farmers need clarity on whether the New Economy Policy will complement Feed Ghana, subsume it, or provide the financing framework for its implementation . Without a clear outline of planned interventions, he said, farmers and other stakeholders cannot assess whether the US$10 billion will address the sector’s actual constraints.
The government’s own messaging has emphasised industrial linkages. Food and Agriculture Minister Eric Opoku told Parliament in July that “one job created in primary agriculture can lead to three or four additional jobs created in the processing space,” and described Feed the Industry as a deliberate shift from “anticipatory demand” toward production tied to specific industrial off-takers . A soy processing plant in Tamale and 500 hectares of irrigated tomato land are among the initiatives intended to create guaranteed buyers .
Youth, Land and Irrigation
PFAG’s concerns extend beyond processing infrastructure. Nortey identified limited access to land, mechanisation and digital infrastructure as barriers keeping young people out of agriculture—constraints that make the sector unattractive despite its employment potential . The association has also consistently called for irrigation investment to reduce dependence on rain-fed farming, a vulnerability that the Association of Ghana Industries has warned undermines agro-processing by creating seasonal supply disruptions and forcing manufacturers to import raw materials that could be sourced locally .
The New Economy Policy’s agriculture pillar will be judged, Nortey suggested, on whether it moves beyond production targets to build the systems that carry food from farm to factory to market. “Aligning agricultural production with processing and export development will be essential to ensuring that the proposed investment delivers lasting benefits for farmers and the wider economy,” the association said .
The policy is expected to be detailed in the 2027 Budget, due in the first week of November.
