The African Development Bank (AfDB) has provided Ghana with an $18.8 million grant to strengthen its rice value chain and support the country\u2019s target of achieving rice self-sufficiency by 2028.\n<\/p>\n
The grant is being implemented under the Regional West Africa Resilient Rice Value Chains (REWARD) project, according to the Ghana News Agency on October 8, 2026.\n<\/p>\n
The initiative will support rice cultivation, seed production, processing and market access as Ghana seeks to reduce its dependence on imported rice, which costs the country an estimated $500 million annually.\n<\/p>\n
Ghana\u2019s Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, said the project would improve agricultural productivity, strengthen the rice value chain and enhance the competitiveness of locally produced rice.\n<\/p>\n
Under the project, 3,200 hectares of land will be developed for rice cultivation, while yields are expected to increase from 3.5 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes per hectare. More than 20,000 smallholder farmers across selected districts are expected to benefit from the initiative.<\/p>\n
The project will also support seed production centres, establish 10 rice-processing centres and provide farm machinery and hermetic storage facilities to improve processing efficiency and reduce post-harvest losses.\n<\/p>\n
Ghana\u2019s milled rice production increased from approximately 650,000 tonnes in 2024 to 960,000 tonnes in 2025. However, domestic production met only 56 per cent of the country\u2019s rice demand, highlighting the gap the government hopes to close through increased local production.\n<\/p>\n
The government aims to produce 3.31 million tonnes of paddy rice annually by 2028.\n<\/p>\n
The project is expected to commence in the first week of November 2026, ahead of the 2027 farming season. Separately, Japan has provided a $2.5 million grant for rice seed-production equipment, which is expected to arrive in November.\n<\/p>\n
The investment forms part of broader efforts to strengthen agricultural production and food security across West Africa. In March 2025, the AfDB and the Economic Community of West African States signed a $12 million grant agreement for the REWARD project to improve rice production and strengthen resilient agricultural value chains across the region.<\/p>\n
Through the $18.8 million grant, Ghana aims to expand cultivation, improve yields, strengthen processing capacity and increase the supply of locally produced rice as it works towards reducing import dependence by 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The African Development Bank (AfDB) has provided Ghana with an $18.8 million grant to strengthen its rice value…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,216632,212166,158,369846,369847,354508,7054,223050,144058],"class_list":["post-880128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-business-funding","tag-call-for-applications","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-entrepreneurship-grant","tag-ibom-ignite","tag-innovation-grant","tag-msmes","tag-nigerian-startups","tag-young-entrepreneurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}