President John Dramani Mahama has reaffirmed his commitment to securing affordable credit for farmers, announcing that the government is working to reduce lending rates for the agricultural sector to single digits.
Speaking at the National Farmers’ Day celebration in Ho, President Mahama said high-interest rates have hindered farmers from expanding their operations and fully benefiting from their work.
“Currently, the capital and credit available to our farmers come at such high interest rates that if they take a loan, they virtually end up working for the bank, not for themselves,” he stated.
He emphasized that addressing this challenge is a key priority for his administration.
“One of our prime objectives is to get credit to our farmers at the best possible rate—single-digit interest rate,” the President said. “Credit for agriculture must be at a single-digit interest rate, and this government will work to bring it below 10 percent so farmers can access cheaper credit to produce more and feed our nation.”
President Mahama praised the theme for this year’s celebration, “Feed Ghana, Eat Ghana, Secure the Future,” but expressed concern that the country’s high food import bill continues to undermine efforts to achieve food security.
“Our food import bill of about $3 billion is still too high,” he noted. “We need to grow more food for ourselves, and we can only do this if we provide a ready market for our farmers.”
He described as unacceptable the practice of procuring imported rice for the School Feeding Programme while local farmers struggle to sell their produce.
“It is unacceptable that suppliers of the School Feeding Programme buy rice from Vietnam to feed our schoolchildren when Ghanaian farmers are sitting on rice inventories from last year,” he said.
To address this, President Mahama revealed that he has issued a directive to ensure that key food items used in the programme are sourced locally.
“That is why I directed that for rice, maize, and poultry, at least these three products used in our School Feeding Programme must be procured from our local farmers,” he added.
