From 2027, rice import licences will depend on buying Ghanaian rice first, with commercial imports prohibited altogether by 2030.

Published 12 Nov 2026, 22:55 GMT

2 min read

Officials at the launch of the REWARD-Ghana rice value chain project in Tamale — Launch of REWARD-Ghana in Tamale

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Commercial rice imports are to be banned by 2030, Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson announced in the 2027 Budget presented to Parliament on Thursday, November 12.

The Budget argues that Ghana spends billions of dollars annually on food imports that could be produced competitively at home, a bill it blames for weakening the cedi and passing on external price shocks.

The ban is the end point of a rice plan that begins with production. It creates Rice Development Hubs in the Afram Plains, the Volta Basin, Western Ghana and Northern Ghana.

Production at the hubs is to be organised around irrigation, mechanisation, silos, modern mills, plus packaging and logistics, bringing 100,000 additional hectares of rice under cultivation.

Target yields are five to six metric tonnes per hectare, with about 125,000 jobs expected. The hubs also qualify for targeted tax incentives on irrigation, mechanisation, mills, packaging and logistics, which the Budget says will cut investment costs and post-harvest losses.

Ghana produced about 960,000 metric tonnes of milled rice in 2025, up from roughly 685,000 tonnes in 2022, figures announced when the African Development Bank gave Ghana a US$18.8 million grant for the REWARD-Ghana rice project on November 10.

The bank puts the country's annual rice import bill at about US$500 million.

Public procurement laws will be amended so that schools, hospitals and other public institutions buying rice and other staples use only foodstuff grown in Ghana.

"If you use Ghana's money to buy rice, you must buy Ghana rice," Mr Forson told Parliament.

How the licence rules will work

From 2027, a rice import licence will depend on buying from verified Ghanaian farmers and millers.

"The local-purchase ratio will rise as domestic output expands and import quotas decline," the Budget states.

Mr Forson had already said at a forum at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, telling importers they may have to buy half their volumes locally to qualify for permits.

What the Budget leaves out

The Budget does not set penalties for imports outside the new rules, publish the quota sizes importers will face, or say how the phase-out will affect retail prices. Key figures from the Budget show the rice plan sits inside a wider US$3 billion commercial agriculture pillar.

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.

Rice imports: Ghana to ban commercial imports by 2030 – 2027 Budget

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