Former Assistant Secretary to the President, Ibrahim Adjei, has called for a bold realignment of Ghana’s agricultural priorities to elevate farming into a major pillar of the national economy.
In an extensive reflection on Ghana’s agribusiness potential, Adjei pointed to key gaps in the dairy value chain and underutilized byproducts such as cattle hide as critical areas where value could be added, jobs created, and import dependency reduced.
“We really need to see how we can elevate farming to a point that it’s such a key pillar of the economy throughout the value chain. Right from growing to packaging, to producing, to processing, so that everything you want is here”
Ibrahim Adjei, Former Assistant Secretary to the President
Speaking in his personal capacity, Adjei emphasized that previous administrations, including the one he served in, had made strides in supporting agriculture. But he also noted that beyond primary production, Ghana has yet to achieve a true transformation of its agro-economy.
He underscored the need for strategic focus on the dairy industry, which he described as a largely neglected but highly lucrative sector. According to Adjei, Ghana consumes a significant volume of dairy products, ranging from cheese and yogurt to ice cream and evaporated milk, but contributes very little to their production.
Imported dairy, he explained, continues to dominate the Ghanaian market, despite the country having sufficient cattle stock to support local production. “Africa alone spends close to $600 million on the importation of dairy products. Imagine if we could actually produce that, yet we don’t,” Adjei lamented.
He criticized the limited use of livestock beyond meat, citing the local consumption of processed cattle hide or wale – a practice he warned could have long-term health consequences due to harm introduced during the burning process.
“Instead of us using old car tires to burn the hide that we now consume – which is carcinogenic because the fumes within those car tires enter the skin of the cow – we can actually do something productive with the hide”
Ibrahim Adjei, Former Assistant Secretary to the President
Highlighting the economic potential of the leather industry, Adjei expressed concern that the same animal parts that power billion-dollar industries elsewhere are reduced to snack items in Ghana with no nutritional value.
He compared the consumption of the hide to chewing the keratin of one’s fingernails, to strongly highlight the futility and wastage of the exercise.
He called for a policy environment where the government facilitates and drives change, but without monopolizing the space. “It doesn’t have to be government-centered,” he stated, advocating for swift government-private sector action to turn “the waste into wealth.”
Reflecting on efforts made under the New Patriotic Party’s Planting for Food and Jobs programme, Adjei outlined a range of interventions targeted at boosting both crop and animal production.
These included pesticide distribution, mechanization centres, and infrastructure to support modern agricultural techniques.
“We looked at making sure that pesticides were available because you can grow food, but nature is nature – so how can you equip that environment to be robust against pesticides and parasites?”
Ibrahim Adjei, Former Assistant Secretary to the President
Adjei explained that the mechanization initiative aimed to help farmers shift from manual labor to more efficient techniques, allowing for larger-scale farming even for those who could only afford to lease equipment.
“We had the mechanization centers across the country whereby instead of the usual hoe and cutlass – I’m not saying that hoe and cutlass is bad, they have been with us ever since – but there was a concerted effort to make sure that farmers had access to mechanization centers for tractors, other farming inputs and mechanisms”
Ibrahim Adjei, Former Assistant Secretary to the President
He also touched on the rearing for food and jobs programme, which focused on livestock and aquaculture. The initiative, according to him, promoted raising goats, cattle, chicken, and fish-even within urban environments-as a means of diversifying the sources of agricultural income.
As Ghana charts its path under a new administration in 2025, Adjei’s comments offer a reflective yet forward-looking critique of how agricultural potential can be unlocked, especially through the dairy and leather sectors that remain largely underexploited.
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