{"id":98152,"date":"2025-10-12T04:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=98152"},"modified":"2025-10-12T04:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:37:08","slug":"ghanas-food-losses-could-feed-ashanti-region-for-over-a-year-agribusiness-leaders-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=98152","title":{"rendered":"Ghana\u2019s food losses could feed Ashanti Region for over a year \u2013 agribusiness leaders warn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ghana\u2019s persistent post-harvest losses have reached crisis levels, with the nation losing enough food every year to feed the entire Ashanti Region for more than eighteen months, Daniel Fahene Acquaye, an agribusiness expert and CEO of Agri-Impact Limited, has said.<\/p>\n

The revelation came during the inaugural Regional Agribusiness Dialogue, held in Kumasi on Friday, October 10, 2025\u2014a meeting that has sparked urgent calls for systemic reform and investment in the nation\u2019s agricultural value chain.<\/p>\n

The True Cost of Food Waste<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Acquaye painted a stark picture of the current state of Ghana\u2019s food system, quantifying the annual post-harvest loss at between $1.9 and $2 billion. <\/p>\n

For context, the Ashanti Region, Ghana\u2019s most populous area with over 5.4 million residents (2021 Census), consumes approximately GH\u20b514 billion (about $1.2 billion) worth of food and non-alcoholic beverages each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur post-harvest losses per annum are estimated between $1.9 and $2 billion. I recently calculated that the value of food and non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the Ashanti Region alone is GH\u20b514 billion, about $1.2 billion, depending on the exchange rate you use.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This means the food we lose every year could feed the entire Ashanti Region for more than one and a half years,\u201d Mr. Acquaye told participants, drawing gasps from the audience.<\/p>\n

The scale of waste is underscored by figures from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, which estimates that up to 30% of grains and 50% of fruits and vegetables harvested annually never reach consumers due to inadequate storage, poor transportation, and lack of processing facilities.<\/p>\n

An Unsustainable Import Bill
Despite these losses, Ghana continues to import significant quantities of food staples. According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the country\u2019s food import bill hovered at $2 billion in 2024, a figure that has remained stubbornly high for the past five years. Imports of rice, poultry, wheat, and processed foods comprise the bulk of this expenditure, draining foreign exchange reserves and undermining local producers.<\/p>\n

Mr. Acquaye was unequivocal in his assessment of the situation:<\/p>\n

\u201cGhana\u2019s continued importation of food despite these losses is unsustainable,\u201d he cautioned.<\/p>\n

A Call for Dedicated Agricultural Financing
For years, stakeholders have advocated for the establishment of a dedicated AgriFund to finance critical investments in storage, processing, irrigation, and logistics\u2014areas identified as bottlenecks in the agricultural value chain. Mr. Acquaye renewed this call, urging the government and private sector to show greater ambition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we say agriculture will transform our economy, then why don\u2019t we have an AgriFund? We must reset for transformative agri-investments,\u201d he challenged.<\/p>\n

Currently, agricultural lending in Ghana remains low, accounting for less than 5% of total bank credit, far below the African average, according to the Bank of Ghana.<\/p>\n

Toward a National Agribusiness Policy
The Kumasi dialogue was the first in a series of regional consultations organized by the Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry (MoTAI), in partnership with Agri-Impact Limited, Mastercard Foundation, PwC, Development Bank Ghana, and other stakeholders. The goal: to gather grassroots input for Ghana\u2019s first-ever National Agribusiness Policy, which aims to harmonize fragmented initiatives and drive sector-wide growth.<\/p>\n

Kwame Ntim, Head of Agribusiness at MoTAI, emphasized the importance of coordinated policy:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agribusiness sector has operated in a fragmented manner with no single policy guiding it. These consultations will help us develop a strategic framework for coordinated growth,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Industry Collaboration and Ownership
Industry leaders echoed calls for greater collaboration and private sector ownership. Hayfron Aboagye, a Partner at PwC Ghana, highlighted the paradox of Ghana\u2019s natural wealth and prevailing poverty:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s baffling that with our vast arable land, we still consider ourselves poor. Agriculture and agribusiness present both a challenge and an opportunity \u2014 one that requires collective effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ghana boasts over 13 million hectares of arable land, yet only about 7 million hectares are cultivated, according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.<\/p>\n

A Renewed National Commitment
The Kumasi event follows a high-level National Agribusiness Dialogue convened in Accra in July 2025, attended by President John Dramani Mahama and sector Minister Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare. That meeting underscored Ghana\u2019s ambition to make agribusiness a key driver of jobs, food security, and prosperity for years to come.<\/p>\n

With annual food losses nearly matching the value of the nation\u2019s entire food import bill, experts at the dialogue argued that the time for bold, coordinated action is now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ghana\u2019sGhana\u2019s persistent post-harvest losses have reached crisis levels, with the nation losing enough food every year to feed the entire Ashanti Region for more than eighteen months, Daniel Fahene Acquaye, an agribusiness expert and CEO of Agri-Impact Limited, has said.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1900,117,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hp-news-2","category-news","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}