The Centre for Democratic Movement (CDM) has raised serious concerns over Ghana’s worsening food glut crisis, warning that persistent post-harvest losses, weak market systems, and poor agricultural coordination are pushing many farmers out of production and threatening national food security.
Convener of the Group, Samuel Doku speaking at a press conference, he described the situation as a “governance failure” rather than merely an agricultural challenge, accusing authorities of failing to translate agricultural abundance into sustainable economic opportunity.
According to CDM, large quantities of maize, tomatoes, rice, beans, yam, millet, soybean and other staple crops continue to rot at farm gates across several farming communities due to lack of storage facilities, unreliable markets, weak transportation systems, and inadequate state intervention.
“At the same time consumers continue to pay high food prices in urban centres while schools and vulnerable communities experience supply shortages,” the group stated.
The Movement warned that many farmers are now abandoning cultivation after suffering sustained financial losses and uncertainty, with some reportedly selling farmland because agriculture has become economically unsustainable.
“No nation secures its future by destroying the economic dignity of its farmers,” the group declared.
CDM identified major weaknesses in Ghana’s food distribution architecture, including:
- poor agricultural market coordination,
- inadequate buffer stock management,
- weak agro-processing capacity,
- insufficient storage infrastructure,
- and deteriorating feeder road networks.
The group also highlighted several major food-producing zones affected by the crisis.
In the Ashanti Region, Ejura, Faman, Agogo and Drobonso were identified as key maize-producing areas facing severe market challenges. Other affected regions mentioned included Bono, Bono East, Eastern, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah and Volta regions.
According to the organization, rice production zones in Northern Ghana and the Volta Region continue to experience significant post-harvest losses despite contributing heavily to national food supply.
CDM further stated that soybean and millet farmers in northern Ghana are equally struggling with poor market access, weak logistics systems, and limited agro-processing opportunities.
The group criticized what it described as government’s overemphasis on the rhetoric of a “24-hour economy” without corresponding investment in the infrastructure needed to support agricultural productivity and food distribution.
“At a time when vast quantities of perishable food items continue to rot in farming communities, one would expect a decisive state intervention to absorb, preserve and redistribute these surpluses as part of a truly productive 24-hour economic model,” the statement noted.
Instead, CDM argued, government policy appears focused on “cosmetic infrastructure announcements” while neglecting critical systems such as:
- aggregation centres,
- cold chain infrastructure,
- storage facilities,
- processing plants,
- and efficient transportation networks.
The organization maintained that a credible 24-hour economy cannot simply mean extending trading hours, but must be anchored on productivity, value addition, storage capacity, and supply chain coordination.
“The ongoing food glut crisis is not merely an agricultural challenge. It is a direct indictment of policy incoherence and implementation gaps in the broader economic transformation agenda,” the group stated.
CDM consequently called on government to urgently:
- establish a national emergency produce purchase programme,
- expand strategic grain reserves and storage systems,
- introduce guaranteed minimum pricing mechanisms for staple crops,
- invest aggressively in agro-processing and food industrialization,
- improve feeder roads and rural transport systems,
- and strengthen market linkages between farmers, schools, hospitals and public institutions.
The group concluded that food security cannot be achieved through production alone but through “efficient systems, coordinated distribution and strategic governance.”
