By: Nana Karikari, Senior Global Affairs Correspondent
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has published new figures providing chilling context for a national crisis. The data shows a stark 7.3% rise in food insecurity—from 12.4 million to 13.3 million Ghanaians—between the first and final quarters of 2024. This near one-million-person increase is not just a statistic. Instead, it is a sobering metric of human suffering. This outcome should shock every Ghanaian citizen and policymaker. It also demands immediate attention as the country struggles to meet Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger).
The Ordinary Ghanaian’s Plate: A Right Denied
For the ordinary Ghanaian, this surge in food insecurity means that the fight to put a quality meal on the table is getting harder. The GSS defines food insecurity as the “lack of access to adequate and nutritious food necessary for an active and healthy life.” This definition translates into real-world choices: mothers having to compromise on the nutritional value of their children’s meals, and families increasingly having to skip meals altogether. This crisis is further underscored by “worrying links” to child nutrition. Specifically, the proportion of food-insecure households with underweight children under five years rose from 38% to 44.9%. This is a health crisis in the making. Chronically undernourished children, a condition known as stunting, face long-term developmental challenges.
As the UN Resident Coordinator, Zia Choudhury, poignantly observed, he met a 14-year-old girl who looked the height and size of his eight-year-old. His conclusion was immediate: “The answer is very simple: she’s stunted.” Selom Gavor, a mother in the Volta Region—where food insecurity is highest—perhaps captures this struggle best: “I pray for strength every day. When the food money finishes, I must choose between buying simple maize for kooko or medicine for my child. It is a choice no mother should make.” With 17% of Ghanaian children chronically undernourished, according to Choudhury, the long-term human capital of the nation is at stake. Ghanaians should care because the food insecurity of a neighbor’s child today becomes a shared societal burden tomorrow.
The Dual Crisis: Poverty and Food Insecurity Converge The GSS report highlights a devastating convergence. The number of Ghanaians who are both food insecure and multidimensionally poor increased by 400,000, rising from 3.7 million to 4.1 million. This is a powerful statement on the nature of poverty in Ghana. It confirms that the problem isn’t just a lack of food; it’s a systemic failure to address multiple deprivations simultaneously, including income, health, and living standards. As the GSS report itself asserts, “This reinforces the need for integrated policy responses that address multiple deprivations… simultaneously.” This structural challenge means that one-off food handouts, while helpful in emergencies, cannot solve the problem. Ghanaians experiencing this dual deprivation are often trapped in a vicious cycle: poor health from malnutrition prevents them from earning a better income, which in turn perpetuates food insecurity.
Regional and Gender Inequality: The Deepening Divide
The data exposes deeply persistent regional and gender inequalities. This suggests that “national efforts to tackle hunger” are unevenly distributed and failing the most vulnerable. The Volta Region recorded the highest rate of food insecurity at 52% in the fourth quarter, while the Greater Accra Region had the lowest. However, even in Accra, the rate “rose sharply from 20.2% to 29%,” indicating that no region is truly safe from the rising tide of hunger. Additionally, female-headed households remain significantly more vulnerable, with their food insecurity rate increasing from 40.4% to 44%, compared to 32.4% to 37.1% for male-headed households. This gender gap highlights the critical need for targeted social protection programs and economic empowerment initiatives that specifically address the unique challenges women face in accessing resources and capital.
The Government’s Dilemma: Surplus Without Security
The government of Ghana is facing a difficult narrative. How can food insecurity rise when the nation produces a surplus of certain staples? The UN’s alarm over “worrying lapses that threaten both livelihoods and lives” in the food supply chain offers a crucial perspective. Specifically, the struggles of yam farmers—unable to profit due to a surplus, lack of proper storage, and poor transportation infrastructure—expose a critical flaw in Ghana’s flagship agricultural strategy.
This challenge is rooted in massive post-harvest losses (PHL). Independent experts now estimate these losses at a staggering $1.9 billion to $2 billion annually (approximately 19.9 billion GHS to 21.5 billion GHS).
Driving this point home is Agribusiness Economist, Daniel Fahene Acquaye. He describes Ghana as “a warehouse without a roof” due to the nation’s failure to prioritize storage over output. Acquaye asserts that this neglect of “the economics of preservation” means the country has mastered cultivation only to sacrifice the profit and food security gains. He stresses the colossal waste, stating: “To put this opportunity cost into context, this annual food waste could feed the entire Ashanti Region for over one and a half years.” This massive loss translates directly into high consumer prices and low farmer income.
The plight of the smallholder is intensely personal. As one yam farmer lamented: “I watched half my harvest rot on the ground because the roads were bad and the buyer wouldn’t pay a decent price. It is like being punished for working hard. My children will not be farmers.” Another farmer’s sharp summary cuts to the core: “We feed the nation, but the system starves us of our profit.” This paradox of “hunger in the midst of plenty” suggests the primary focus of programs like Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), which successfully boosted crop yields, must shift decisively to logistics, storage, and value addition. The GSS recommendation for “stronger support for smallholder farmers, climate-resilient agriculture, and targeted efforts to close the regional and gender gaps” is a direct call for a policy pivot from crop yields to market systems.
Compounding these issues, the government’s One District, One Warehouse (1D1W) program faces significant challenges. Many completed facilities are left uncommissioned or decaying. Additionally, the broader industrial program, the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) initiative, was officially discontinued in mid-2025 as the government shifts focus to new agro-processing policies.
Climate Shocks: A Systemic Threat to Food Security
The GSS’s call for “climate-resilient agriculture” is a critical, often-understated dimension. It links Ghana’s food crisis to the broader challenges facing West Africa. Changes in rainfall patterns, increased severity of droughts, and localized flooding are directly impacting smallholder farmers, who produce the majority of the nation’s food. These climate shocks do not just reduce yields; they destabilize the entire supply chain, increasing risk for farmers and ultimately driving up food prices for urban consumers. The traditional, less resilient methods of farming and food processing—such as the smoky fish processing observed by the UN Coordinator—add to environmental and health vulnerabilities. Addressing this requires a national commitment to irrigation, drought-resistant seeds, and decentralized, sustainable processing technology, treating climate adaptation as a cornerstone of the national security strategy.
The Neighboring Factor and AfCFTA: Trade, Instability, and Regional Ambition
The regional nature of Ghana’s food insecurity, particularly the high rate in the Volta Region, cannot be decoupled from its neighbors: Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso. Cross-border trade, both formal and informal, is a major component of Ghana’s food supply, but this trade is increasingly vulnerable. Instability in the Sahel, particularly the surge of extremist activity near the northern border, directly impacts farming and market access. This pushes displaced populations toward Ghana, increasing demand while simultaneously disrupting supply chains. Also, price volatility in neighboring markets influences domestic inflation, making food more expensive for the urban poor in Ghana. As the host of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, Ghana’s domestic crisis has profound regional implications. AfCFTA is designed to boost intra-African trade, with agriculture being a prime sector for growth. If Ghana, a relatively stable nation with agricultural surpluses in some areas, cannot resolve its internal logistics failures—as evidenced by the struggling yam farmers and post-harvest losses—it sets a discouraging precedent for regional food market integration. Resolving the paradox of “surplus without security” is therefore not just a national mandate, but a critical test case for African economic ambition.
Ghana’s ability to secure food for its citizens depends heavily on maintaining stable borders and developing robust, formalized regional trade agreements. These agreements must stabilize prices and protect supply routes from external shocks. This regional lens is essential for true national food resilience.
The Opposition’s Critique and Neutral Voices
For the main opposition, the rising numbers serve as a powerful indictment of the government’s economic and agricultural management. They would undoubtedly seize upon the GSS and UN findings to argue that the national economic policies are not trickling down to the most vulnerable. The increased rates in both the poorest regions and the capital city, alongside the jump in multidimensional poverty, would be framed as evidence of policy failure. They could rightfully ask: What is the return on investment for agricultural programs if the farmer is struggling, and the consumer is still hungry?
Neutral voices, including civil society and academia, will echo the UN’s focus on the “backstory” of food. Mr. Choudhury’s “shock” at the working conditions of fishmongers suffering from “respiratory illnesses” due to traditional smoking methods, or the struggling yam farmers, shifts the conversation from merely availability to sustainability, equity, and human dignity within the food system. These neutral voices would push for the “integrated policy responses” demanded by the GSS. They argue that true food security is impossible when the very people who produce the food are themselves vulnerable.
The overall message for every Ghanaian is clear: the current trajectory is unsustainable. A cohesive, data-driven national strategy is needed to ensure that no table is left empty.
