Nearly four months after the government announced a bold directive to prioritise locally produced food in public institutions, frustration is beginning to grow among farmers who say the promise has yet to translate into real opportunities for them.
For many rice farmers across Ghana, the announcement in November 2025 that public schools would buy only locally produced staples was greeted with excitement. The directive from President John Dramani Mahama, communicated by Finance Minister, Cassiel Ato Forson, was expected to create a guaranteed market for Ghanaian producers under the widely promoted “Buy Ghana, Eat Ghana” agenda.
But according to the former director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Dr. Charles Nyaaba, that expectation is yet to materialise.
Speaking on JoyNews on Monday, March 9, Dr Nyaaba said farmers who prepared to supply rice to the Ghana School Feeding Programme are now disappointed after learning that contractors engaged to procure the grains allegedly chose to import rice instead.
He explained that farmers had anticipated a surge in demand following the presidential directive and were ready to supply the programme but the excitement among producers quickly turned into concern when there was little evidence that the locally grown rice was being purchased.
“We were very excited when we got the directive from the president that the school feeding programme was going to buy rice and maize from local farmers,” he said. “We were all prepared, waiting for them to arrive, but the contractors engaged to purchase the produce decided to import the rice instead.”
Dr Nyaaba alleged that the contractors tasked with sourcing food for the programme bypassed local farmers entirely.
“They gave contracts to people to buy from farmers, but instead they imported rice and left the farmers out,” he claimed.
He also raised concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the procurement process, noting that repeated calls for the names of the contractors to be made public have not been honoured.
According to him, stakeholders have consistently urged the National Food Buffer Stock Company to release the list of contractors responsible for mobilising the produce, but those requests have so far gone unanswered.
“We keep engaging them to publish the list of people they engaged to mobilise the produce, but they are failing to do that,” he said. “And there is no evidence from any farmer that the National Food Buffer Stock came to buy from them.”
The government’s directive for schools to buy locally produced rice, maize, chicken and eggs was introduced as part of broader efforts to strengthen domestic agriculture, guarantee a steady market for farmers and reduce reliance on imported food.
However, Dr Nyaaba questioned whether such policies would achieve their intended impact if implementation gaps persist.
He urged authorities to ensure that government-backed initiatives designed to support local agriculture truly reach the farmers they are meant to benefit.
