Seeds of Opportunity: Empowering  the youth to turn agriculture into opportunity

By Stephen Nyamador

Ghana spends GH₵760 million every year importing tomatoes. Read that again. In a country where the sun shines generously, there is an abundance of arable land and the availability of water, we pay three-quarters of a billion cedis annually to Burkina Faso and China for a fruit we can grow at home.

At the same time, 45% of the tomatoes Ghanaian farmers actually produce about GH₵250 million worth, rot in fields and on roadsides because we lack the infrastructure to store and process them (Etefe 2026).

This is not a farming problem. It is a business failure. And fixing it could be the single largest youth employment opportunity in Ghana today.

A GH₵5.7bn hole in our economy.
The numbers, compiled by the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana, are sobering. Ghana is the world’s second-largest importer of tomato paste after Germany.

Only seven percent of tomato paste sold here is actually made from Ghanaian tomatoes; the rest is imported bulk paste, repackaged and branded. When you add up the direct import bill, lost tax revenue of GH₵4.5 billion in wages that 250,000 potential jobs would generate, the total economic haemorrhage reaches GH₵5.7 billion a year (Etefe 2026).

As Anthony Morrison, CEO of the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana, put it: “We’re not just losing foreign exchange; we’re losing an entire generation’s employment opportunities”.

These are not abstract figures. They represent cold storage facilities that do not exist, processing plants that never opened, logistics companies that were never started, and young Ghanaians who migrated to Accra or abroad because there was nothing for them at home.

The Youth Equation
Ghana needs to create 300,000 new jobs every year to absorb its growing young population, according to a World Bank assessment of the country’s employment landscape (Dadzie et al .2022). The formal sector cannot deliver this. Government programmes from STEP to YEA to NEIP have helped, but youth unemployment has continued to climb (Okoro et al.2022).

Most of the youth are not participating in agriculture due to lack of interest, financial constraints, proximity, and family histories of farming losses. Young people are not opposed to agriculture.

They are opposed to poverty. When they look at traditional tomato farming, rain-dependent, yielding a meagre 7.5 tonnes per hectare against a potential of 15 tons per hectare that the land is actually capable of producing, with no reliable buyer at harvest time, their reluctance is entirely rational (Bortey & Osuman 2016).

The task then is not to persuade young Ghanaians to go back to the land.” It is to build an agribusiness ecosystem where the land pays.

My Argument is that: The Farm Is Not the Answer, the Value Chain Is

This is where I part company with much of the policy conversation. Every election cycle, we hear about “youth in agriculture” initiatives that essentially mean subsidizing young people to grow crops. This fundamentally misunderstands where the money is.

Ghana’s tomato crisis is not primarily a production crisis. It is a post-harvest and processing crisis. An IFRI study with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture documented post-harvest losses between 20% and 65% of total production, driven by inadequate handling, transport, storage, and processing (IFPRI) & (MOFA) 2020.

Farmers in the Offinso North District lose 40% of their major-season harvest to rot and bruising, largely because there are no reliable markets or storage facilities nearby (Aidoo et al.2014). A World Bank-commissioned agrologistics roadmap for Ghana concluded that the priority interventions are cold storage and small-to-medium-scale processing in the Brong-Ahafo and Ashanti production heartlands. Acquaye et al.2019

The evidence exists. The IITA Agripreneur Movement, which started with 37 young people in Nigeria in 2012, had by 2021 trained over 25,600 youth across 10 African countries, generating 2,592 business start-ups. Crucially, 32% of enterprises were in agro-processing, not just farming.

In Ghana’s own Upper West Region, the Ghana Institute of Horticulturists’ youth training programme doubled farm productivity in project communities and cut rural-urban migration by 20% over five years (Abubakari et al. 2012). Cross Link Farms, a Ghanaian youth- led venture, has demonstrated that smart incubators and hydroponic systems can make small-scale farming profitable and modern (Engmann & Ngwakwe 2024).

These are not isolated feel-good stories. They are proof of a model that works when young people are treated as entrepreneurs, not as aid recipients.

Recommendations for Policymakers, Investors, and the private Sector

• Fund the Cold Chain, Not Just the Farm
  The Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana has proposed a GH₵ 3.2 billion five-year investment in production, quality assurance, and cold chain infrastructure, projecting economic returns exceeding GH₵ 5 billion by 2030 (Etefe 2026). Government should anchor this with public co-investment and mandate that at least 30% of cold storage and processing concessions go to youth-led business. Development Finance Institutions – the AfDB, IFAD, World Bank should treat this as bankable infrastructure, not as aid.
• Integrate Agribusiness into Education – Practically, Not Theoretically.
  Senior high schools and polytechnics should offer project-based agribusiness modules developed with successful Ghanaian agripreneurs, not textbook agriculture. Students should leave school having developed a real business plan for a real value chain opportunity, with pathways to incubation funding. A practical example: At the University of Cape Coast, Agribusiness students are required, upon reaching Level 400, to either form groups or work individually to develop an agriculture-related project.

Each group or individual must design a viable business idea, prepare a comprehensive business plan, pitch the concept, and implement it in real life. Students are then assessed based on the progress of their projects and other evaluation criteria. My group, Ralasan Rice ice Cream, developed an innovative product rice-based ice cream for lactose-intolerant consumers.

This practical and entrepreneurship-driven approach to learning is highly beneficial and should be adopted by the government at the Senior High School level (particularly for Agriculture students) and in Technical Universities offering Agribusiness programmes. Such an initiative would help students develop critical thinking, innovation, and real-world business skills from an early stage.

The Real Question

Ghana does not lack tomatoes, sunlight, young people, or market demand. What it lacks is the connective tissues between them: the cold rooms, the processing lines, the logistics networks, the financing, and the policy coherence to turn a broken value chain into a functioning industry.

The tomato sector alone could support 250,000 jobs. Scale the same logic to peppers, onions, cassava, rice and the job-creation potential is transformational. But none of this happens by accident. It requires treating agribusiness as a serious investment destination and Ghana’s young people as the entrepreneurs who will build it, not a social problem to be managed.

We can keep spending GH 760 million a year to import what grows in our own soil. Or we can invest a fraction of that to build an industry, create a quarter-million jobs, and hand the next generation an economy that actually works for them.

The tomato, it turns out, is not the problem. It is the opportunity. The question is whether we are finally ready to seize it.

References:

Juliet Etefe thebftonline.com · 2026: Annual tomato imports hit GH¢760m – The Business & Financial Times 

1. Dadzie, M. Fumey, Suleiman Namara World Bank Publications · 2020
2. Okoro, Dr. Théophile Bindeouè Nassè, Amos Baafira Ngmendoma, N. Carbonell & Dr. M. Nanema 2022: ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT CHALLENGES IN AFRICA: GHANA IN PERSPECTIVE 

Wuni, I.Y., Boafo, H.K., & Dinye, R.D. (2017). Examining the Non-Participation of Some Youth in Agriculture in the Midst of Acute Unemployment in Ghana.

Bortey, H.M., & Osuman, A.S. (2016). ANALYSING THE CONSTRAINTS FACED BY THE SMALL-HOLDER TOMATO GROWERS IN GHANA. The Journal of Agricultural Extension, 4.

Research Institute (IFPRI), I., & and Agriculture (MoFA), M.O. (2020). Ghana’s tomato market.

1. Aidoo, Rita A. Danfoku, J. Mensah Journal of development and agricultural economics · 2014 Determinants of postharvest losses in tomato production in the Offinso North district of Ghana 

Acquaye, D.K., Asante-Dartey, J., & Bartels, P.K. (2019). Agrologistic Roadmaps Ghana : Phase Two – Development of a Roadmap Methodology Applied to the Tomato and Mango Supply Chains.

Abubakari, A.H., McDonald, M.R., Ceplis, D., Mahunu, K.G., Owen, J., Idun, I.A., Kumah, P., Pritchard, M., Nyarko, G., & Appiah, F. (2012). FOSTERING SUSTAINABLE ENGAGEMENT OF THE YOUTH IN THE AGRIFOOD SECTOR: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN GHANA.

The writer is an Agribusiness graduate with a strong passion for sustainable agriculture, youth empowerment, and enterprise development. He has completed specialized online training with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and agrifood systems, equipping him with practical knowledge to promote environmentally responsible farming and food systems.

Through active engagement on LinkedIn, he has gained valuable industry insights, built professional connections, and stayed informed on emerging trends in agribusiness and data-driven innovation. With a growing interest in data analytics, he is committed to leveraging knowledge and digital tools to support informed decision-making, empower young people, and drive sustainable agricultural and business growth.

Contact: +233 245 160 492 or [email protected] and

www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-nyamador

Post Views: 1