A United Nations (UN) Working Group has warned that Ghana’s agricultural modernisation drive risks marginalising smallholder farmers, fisherfolk and pastoralists unless the country closes a widening gap between its human rights commitments and actual delivery on the ground.
The Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, completing its first official visit to Ghana, acknowledged recent legislative progress, including the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act 2025, the Social Protection Act 2025 and the Affirmative Action Act. It nonetheless cautioned that a “persistent gap” between policy and implementation continues to leave rural communities exposed.
The experts warned that Ghana’s growing emphasis on mechanised, export-oriented agriculture risks producing a “dual food system” in which large-scale commercial agribusiness expands while family-based farming communities face deeper exclusion. Smallholder farmers, artisanal fishers and pastoralists, whom the Working Group described as the “backbone of food production,” continue to face poverty, limited market access and inadequate legal protections.
Land tenure emerged as a central structural concern. The Working Group argued that Ghana’s dual land ownership system leaves subsistence farmers vulnerable to displacement with limited legal recourse, while women, youth and elderly farmers face compounded disadvantages under both statutory and customary arrangements.
The delegation identified illegal mining as the country’s most acute environmental emergency, warning that river pollution, farmland destruction and heavy-metal contamination from galamsey now extend well beyond active mining zones, threatening food security and rural livelihoods across broader areas.
Structural weaknesses in the agricultural value chain, including poor rural roads, inadequate cold storage, market intermediary dominance and post-harvest losses, further weaken the earning power of rural producers. Access to formal credit remains severely limited for smallholders and artisanal fishers who lack conventional collateral.
The Working Group also flagged the situation of Fulbe pastoralist communities, describing many as “structurally invisible” within governance systems due to documentation barriers, shrinking grazing land and intensifying tensions with settled agricultural communities.
The experts concluded that meaningful rural transformation in Ghana would require “political courage to confront entrenched interests” and protect vulnerable populations through the country’s agricultural transition.
