As Ghana celebrates the birthday of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, concerns have been raised that the country’s growing dependence on food imports undermines one of the founding President’s most enduring legacies — agricultural self-sufficiency.
Dr. Amos Rutherford Azinu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Legacy Crop Improvement Centre, said Ghana spends over $2 billion annually importing staples such as rice, tomatoes, and fish, despite possessing the infrastructure and natural resources to produce them locally.
“This is not the Ghana that Nkrumah envisioned when he invested national resources in creating the foundation for agricultural abundance,” Dr. Azinu said in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency.
He argued that the underutilisation of the Volta River Project, designed in the 1960s to anchor food security and rural prosperity, reflects the country’s failure to fully implement Nkrumah’s long-term agricultural strategy.
“Lake Volta is a gift to the nation, yet its irrigation and aquaculture potential remain largely untapped. Meanwhile, we continue to import fish, rice and vegetables that our farmers could produce,” he lamented.
Dr. Azinu stressed that speeches and monuments alone cannot honour Nkrumah’s memory. Instead, he called for urgent investments to modernise irrigation, strengthen rural infrastructure, and empower smallholder farmers with technology, credit, and market access.
He added that adopting modern practices such as precision farming and climate-smart techniques could transform Ghana’s northern regions into a national food basket.
“The greatest tribute to Nkrumah would be a Ghana that feeds itself, creates jobs for its youth, and reduces dependence on foreign imports,” Dr. Azinu said.
He concluded that with climate change and global supply chain disruptions exposing vulnerabilities, Nkrumah’s vision of agricultural self-reliance was more urgent than ever.
