UN trade figures show Ghana bought 357 tonnes of milled rice in 1975 and 4,133 tonnes in 1976, down from 39,112 tonnes in 1974.

Published 14 Nov 2026, 17:52 GMT

3 min read

Sir Sam Jonah speaking at the Kutu Acheampong Foundation lecture — Sir Sam Jonah delivers the second Kutu Acheampong public lecture in Accra

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Ghana's rice imports nearly vanished in 1975, but they did not fall to zero in either of the two years Sir Sam Jonah named on Friday, UN farm trade figures show.

The country brought in 357 tonnes of milled rice in 1975 and 4,133 tonnes in 1976, against 39,112 tonnes in 1974, according to FAOSTAT trade data from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The claim

He credited Operation Feed Yourself, the farming campaign of Acheampong's military government, with lifting food production. He said the drive brought Ghana's rice imports down to nothing in both 1975 and 1976.

What the figures show

FAO's milled-rice imports for Ghana, all official figures except 1979, which FAO took from an outside source, were:

1972: 24,268 tonnes
1973: 53,574 tonnes
1974: 39,112 tonnes
1975: 357 tonnes
1976: 4,133 tonnes
1977: 8,970 tonnes
1978: 45,400 tonnes
1979: 36,000 tonnes
1980: 65,878 tonnes

The drop from 39,112 tonnes in 1974 to 357 tonnes in 1975 is a fall of about 99 per cent in a single year. FAO values the 1975 imports at about US$0.15 million, against US$18.2 million a year earlier.

Imports stayed low through 1977, then climbed back above 45,000 tonnes in 1978.

Local harvests did not rise in the two years Jonah cited. FAO production data put Ghana's paddy crop at 73,200 tonnes in 1974, 71,100 tonnes in 1975 and 69,800 tonnes in 1976.

The big jump came in 1977, when the harvest reached 109,000 tonnes. Paddy is rice still in the husk, so those tonnages cannot be set directly against the milled-rice imports.

The FAO figures alone do not explain why imports fell so sharply in 1975.

Ghana now imports far more. It bought 443,372 tonnes of milled rice and 182,882 tonnes of broken rice in 2023, a year its farmers harvested 1,443,000 tonnes of paddy.

Verdict

Almost, but not zero. Rice imports fell by about 99 per cent in 1975 and stayed low in 1976, yet FAO still records 357 tonnes and 4,133 tonnes arriving in those years.

The paddy harvest did not grow in either year. It rose only in 1977.

Araba IncoomAraba Incoom writes on multiple topics with a vast knowledge across different sector. You can almost call me an AI, after all, my initials are Araba Incoom.

Fact check: Sam Jonah says rice imports hit zero in 1975 and 1976, but FAO figures disagree

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