By: Gloria Anderson
Ghana’s cohort emerged as the top-performing team at the 2025 graduation ceremony of the Center for African Leaders in Agriculture (CALA), earning praise for championing a project on promoting local rice consumption an achievement stakeholders say reinforces the country’s growing leadership in food systems transformation. The event, held in Accra, brought together delegates from across the continent as CALA celebrated a new group of food systems leaders.
Country Director for Agra Ghana, Dr. Betty Annan, expressed delight at the Ghana team’s success, noting that their project aligns strongly with national priorities. “I was hoping for Ghana to win, and today that hope has become a reality,” she said.
She added that Agra Ghana continues to work with partners such as the JAK Foundation, Hope Line, and Farm Wallet to strengthen rice production and intensify consumer awareness campaigns. Dr. Annan further revealed that CALA has so far trained about 230 leaders across eight African countries and is now expanding into Francophone West Africa.
The Director of the Women in Agricultural Development Directorate (WIAD) at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Paulina Addy, also commended the Ghana cohort for selecting a project focused on boosting local rice consumption.
She described the initiative as timely and fully aligned with government efforts to reduce dependency on imported rice.
According to her, recent investments in modern rice mills have significantly improved the quality of Ghana rice, eliminating issues such as stones in packaged rice. “Christmas is just around the corner. Let us enrich our farmers by buying what we produce locally,” she urged.
The ceremony also highlighted CALA’s broader mission of building a new generation of capable agricultural leaders across the continent. Speaking at the event, Senior Specialist Institutional Capacity Strengthening at AGRA and CALA Lilian Githinji, said CALA was established to fill a critical leadership gap within Africa’s food systems. She explained that despite strong policy development across African governments, implementation often lags due to insufficient leadership. “The missing ingredient in bringing policies to life is capable leadership. CALA is about building a critical mass of food systems leaders who can transform agriculture where they operate,” she said.
CALA currently operates in eight African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi and five East African nations. The program is now transitioning into a fully pan-African initiative, expanding into Francophone West Africa with new engagements in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, and Togo. The long-term goal is to develop 25,000 food systems leaders by 2030, supporting the broader Kampala Decade agenda from 2026 to 2036.
Since its inception in 2021, CALA has graduated about 230 leaders drawn from the public sector, private sector and civil society. Through its Action Learning Projects, delegates work together to diagnose real challenges within their countries’ food systems and design practical, community-level solutions. Stakeholders say Ghana’s recent success especially its leadership in advocating for local rice highlights the importance of strong leadership, consumer education, institutional strengthening and strategic partnerships in transforming food systems across the continent.
