Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has proposed a more strategic use of government spending to support local farmers, raising concerns over why the billions spent on feeding students each year are not translating into reliable markets for agricultural producers.
Speaking on expenditure on education in a short video he shared on Facebook, the Minister noted that Ghana spends roughly GH¢5 billion annually on feeding programmes under the Free Senior High School policy and the Ghana School Feeding Programme combined.
With this significant portion of the education budget going into food procurement, he argued that spending power should be deliberately channelled to support local agriculture through strict enforcement of procurement laws.
“Aside from free secondary education feeding, we also spend on school feeding programs. The two put together, we are spending 5 billion Ghana cedis every year.
“But I hear farmers complaining that there is a glut. Why can’t we use government purchasing power procurement law to stop the importation of food to feed our school children?” he questioned.
His remarks highlight a growing concern within Ghana’s agricultural sector, where periodic overproduction of crops such as rice, maize, tomatoes and vegetables often leads to losses due to weak market access.
For more than a year, farmers of the two most-consumed grains, rice and maize, have been dealing with a glut of unsold stocks from the 2024/25 farming season.
Farmers in Asutuare in the Greater Accra Region recently took to the streets to demonstrate over the issue while pleading with the government to take action to reduce importation.
The upcoming 2027 budget presentation in the first week of November aims to transition Ghana’s economy from stabilisation to active transformation.
Agricultural transformation is a top priority.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, earlier disclosed that adequate allocations will be made in next year’s budget for the construction of silos for the storage of grains.
The Finance Minister was emphatic that aligning public food procurement with local production could help stabilise farmer incomes, reduce post-harvest losses and cut down on food imports.
“I think the time has come to use the procurement law to force those who are spending to buy it from our farmers.”
The call adds to ongoing debates about the effectiveness of existing policies, including local sourcing provisions under the School Feeding Programme, which have faced challenges with enforcement, delayed payments and fragmented supply chains.
Farmer organisations like the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana say a more structured approach, including farmer aggregation, contract farming and timely payments, is critical if government procurement is to serve as a reliable market for producers.
