Ahead of tomorrow’s Farmers’ Day celebration, Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga has issued a strong call for Ghana to shift its focus from reliance on food imports to embracing large-scale commercial farming.

He highlighted that the country currently spends over $3.5 billion annually on importing food, which was both unsustainable and a missed opportunity for economic growth.

Ayariga emphasised that Ghana’s vast arable land and water resources remained underutilised and that it was time to stop the cycle of importing billions of dollars worth of food and instead invest in modern, mechanised, and irrigated commercial farming. 

He pointed out the success of countries like South Africa, where commercial agriculture had created jobs, stimulated industries, and boosted exports.

He argued that farming should be seen as a major opportunity to reduce unemployment and food inflation, and that Ghana’s future lied in transitioning from small-scale peasant farming to large-scale, high-tech agriculture capable of feeding the nation and generating exports. 

Ayariga criticised the current system, which continues to drain billions of dollars from Ghana’s economy through food imports, describing it as a form of job exportation.

He urged policymakers to prioritise policies that promoted large-scale farming, mechanisation, and irrigation, transforming agriculture into a key driver of economic growth rather than a drain on resources. 

He warned that unless Ghana adopted this approach, it would remain dependent on food imports, wasting valuable water resources and natural assets in the process.

With the country’s big man-made lake and numerous rivers, the continued reliance on imports represents a national failure that must be addressed.