Ghana’s ambition to increase non-traditional export earnings to US$10 billion will depend largely on the country’s ability to process more of its agricultural produce locally and retain greater value within the economy.
That was a key message emerging from the third Ghana International Horticulture Expo in Accra, where government officials, exporters and industry players stressed the need to move Ghana’s agricultural sector beyond the production and export of raw commodities.
Ghana’s non-traditional exports exceeded US$5 billion in 2025, a milestone described by stakeholders as significant but not sufficient to meet the country’s long-term economic ambitions.
President of the Federation of Associations of Ghanaian Exporters, Davies Narh Korboe, said the next challenge was to build on the achievement and work towards US$10 billion and beyond.
He argued that Ghana must “produce what we consume, process what we produce, and export what the world is willing to buy,” describing this as the bridge between agricultural self-reliance and economic sovereignty.
The call for value addition comes amid concerns over the challenges confronting agricultural producers, including inadequate irrigation, expensive financing, post-harvest losses, weak cold-chain infrastructure, fragmented supply chains, logistics costs and inconsistent standards.
The Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, who represented President John Dramani Mahama at the expo, similarly stressed that the agricultural journey must go beyond the farm.
According to her, Ghana must strengthen the connections between production, industry and markets so that more value can be added locally and Ghanaian products can reach larger and more competitive markets.
She said the newly approved agribusiness policy seeks to address raw material supply, financing, value addition and market access, while the Feed the Industry programme is intended to strengthen local production to meet the raw material needs of industry.
The minister also pointed to the need for efficient storage, processing, packaging, transportation and market connections, particularly in horticulture, where products can lose significant value shortly after harvest.
The potential of processing was further illustrated by Fidelity Bank’s Director in charge of Corporate and Institutional Banking, John-Paul Taabavi.
He noted that cocoa paste alone could generate export value comparable to the wider non-traditional export sector, underscoring the difference between exporting raw products and processing them into higher-value commodities.
He argued that the contrast demonstrates that Ghana’s competitive advantage is not only in what is produced from its soil, but also in what happens to those products between harvest and the export market.
The Tree Crops Development Authority also highlighted opportunities to develop industries around commodities such as cashew, coconut, oil palm, rubber and mango.
Its Chief Executive Officer, Dr Andy Osei Okrah, said processing these commodities locally could create employment, promote enterprise development, facilitate technology transfer and increase export earnings.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, Francis Kojo Kwarteng Arthur, said non-traditional exports reached US$5.006 billion in 2025, representing a 30.7 per cent increase from US$3.83 billion in 2024.
The figures, he said, put Ghana on course towards its US$10 billion non-traditional export revenue target by 2030.
