Accra, Ghana//-The World Bank Group has urged West African countries to reduce their dependence on the about $5 billion annual rice import to improve balance-of-payments resilience, support rural incomes and create space for private capital to participate in a structured regional value chain.
According to the Bank, the West Africa region, apart from importing rice, is also effectively exporting scarce foreign exchange, jobs, and industrial opportunities to external producers.
World Bank Vice President for Planet Guangzhe Chen made the call at the opening of the two-day (2-3rd June) West Africa Rice Investment Roundtable in Accra.
He explained that reducing that dependence would also strengthen food security, and warned that the region’s continued dependence on imported rice poses a growing economic and food security risk amid climate pressures, geopolitical uncertainty and tightening development finance.
Accelerate investment in the rice value chain
Mr Chen used the roundtable, which was organised by the World Bank, in partnership with the Government of Ghana and the ECOWAS Commission to call for an immediate acceleration of investment across West Africa’s rice value chain.
He said the region still imports roughly 40 per cent of the rice it consumes, costing ECOWAS member states an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion annually despite having the resources to become a competitive producer.
Mr Chen told policymakers, researchers, investors and development partners gathered at the event that; “Rice is central to both food security and economic growth”.
He continued: “A region with enormous agricultural potential should not remain dependent on volatile global markets for a staple food that it can competitively produce itself”.
Disruptions in global commodity markets
The World Bank Vice President noted that recent disruptions in global commodity markets, including fertiliser shortages and surging food prices, have exposed vulnerabilities in West Africa’s food systems and urged regional leaders to boost domestic production.
Mr Chen was delighted that the region already possesses a framework for transformation through the ECOWAS Rice Observatory and national investment plans.
However, he noted that the next phase requires implementation and large-scale financing rather than additional policy discussions.
World Bank’s efforts
Mr Chen highlighted the World Bank Group’s AgriConnect initiative, which was launched in October 2025 and sought to move beyond fragmented agricultural interventions and deliver coordinated, value-chain-wide transformation.
The World Bank, under the programme, is mobilising approximately $1.2 billion through the Food Systems Resilience Programme to strengthen productivity, regional market integration and policy coordination across eight countries, including Ghana.
The initiative, according to him, is expected to reach an estimated 3.2 million beneficiaries.
Additional investments planned in Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso and Guinea could bring a further $300 million to $400 million into the regional rice sector, Mr Chen added.
Difficult to access finance
However, he admitted that access to finance remains one of the most significant barriers to growth.
Saying smallholder farmers continue to face difficulties securing credit for fertiliser, seeds and other essential inputs, leaving African fertiliser use well below the global average.
Mr Chen therefore urged governments, financial institutions and development partners to scale up risk-sharing mechanisms, guarantees and blended finance instruments capable of attracting private capital into agriculture.
“The de-risking of financing is one of the key solutions. The challenge is how to deploy these tools faster and more systematically across the region.”
Beyond rice production
Mr Chen underscored the need for investment in storage, logistics, processing and market infrastructure, arguing that increasing yields alone would not deliver food security or industrial growth without stronger value chains.
“The real opportunity lies in building complete value chains that create jobs and competitive industries across the region”.
The comments reflect a broader shift in how development institutions and governments are framing agriculture in West Africa.
Rice is no longer being treated only as a food security concern. It is increasingly being positioned as an industrial opportunity, with potential to support irrigation development, mechanisation, agro-processing, logistics, warehousing, regional trade and job creation.
See the rice sector as a strategic economic asset
Ghana’s Vice President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who opened the event, called on West Africa to see the rice sector as a strategic economic asset.
For her, rice farming has moved beyond just cultivation and any attempt to discuss it must focus on young people, incomes and strengthening the resilience of their respective economies against global shocks.
Prof Opoku-Agyemang told the participants that food security has become a critical issue that extends beyond agriculture to encompass economic stability, social protection, national security and geopolitical independence.
She noted that West Africa possesses fertile land, abundant water resources, entrepreneurial farmers, growing consumer markets and one of the youngest populations in the world, yet the continent continued to spend more than $50 billion annually on food imports, with rice accounting for a significant portion of the bill.
The challenge confronting the region
The Vice President observed that the challenge confronting the region is not only increasing rice production but also mobilising the scale of capital required to transform agriculture from a subsistence activity into a commercially viable industry supported by integrated value chains.
“West Africa must therefore see rice as a strategic economic asset. It is about jobs for our young people, incomes for farmers and strengthening the resilience of our economies against future global shocks,” she stressed.
Prof Opoku-Agyemang underscored the importance of regional cooperation, emphasising that stronger collaboration among West African countries would help deepen trade, improve food security and advance the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Ghana is ready to work with partners to strengthen policy coordination, improve infrastructure, promote agribusiness development and create an enabling environment for investment across the rice value chain, she added.
“The future of African food security must be grown in African soil, financed by beneficial partnerships, powered by African enterprise and sustained through regional cooperation,” she said.
In Ghana, rice is the second most consumed cereal
Ghana’s Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, said in Ghana, rice is the second most consumed cereal, with current per capita consumption of about 51 kilograms and still rising.
According to him, just last year alone, Ghana consumed roughly 1.71 million tons of rice but domestically produced around 960,000 tons of milled rice, leaving close to 751,000 tons, that amount to around 320 million United States dollars.
Mr Opoku said the deficit gap is described as the single largest untapped agribusiness opportunity for investment, industrialisation, and high-productivity jobs for the youth in Ghana, rather than being simply a burden on our balance of payments.
Stressing Ghana’s three main ecologies on which the rice production revolves, he said rain-fed lowland, in-land valley account for almost 90% of output and irrigation systems around 10%.
Under the System of Rice Intensification
He indicated that irrigated plots in Ghana have reached 6.5 tonnes per hectare against 3.8 tonnes under conventional practice, a near doubling on the same land. With improved seed, water, mechanisation, and agronomy, 6 tonnes per hectare is well within reach, especially under irrigation.
“Ghana’s rice milling recovery stands at around 55%, which is below the global benchmark of 65%. This gap stems from over-dried paddy, mixing of varieties, and mills without the required components, which result in high breakage and impurities.
These losses (amounting to about 50 to 90 million United States dollars annually) increase the cost of production and therefore the price of Ghana rice, making the industry uncompetitive against cheaper imports,” the minister explained.
From Jollof wars to economic reality
Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Finance, Thomas Nyarko Ampem, said, “In West Africa, we often passionately debate whose jollof tastes better.
But beyond the humour lies a serious economic question: why should a region so passionate about rice still spend billions importing it every year?”
Recent estimates suggest that West Africa continues to spend about $5 billion annually on rice imports. That is billions in foreign exchange leaving our economies each year to finance demand we should increasingly be meeting ourselves, he lamented.
“Therefore, the real Jollof competition before us is not whose rice tastes better. It is whether West Africa can finally produce enough rice to feed itself competitively”.
“Our ambition is clear”
The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Alieu Touray, said: “Our ambition is clear: to build more competitive, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems that strengthen food sovereignty, create economic opportunities, contribute to shared prosperity, and progressively achieve regional rice self-sufficiency by 2035”.
