In 2014, African heads of state reaffirmed their commitment to the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) through the adoption of the Malabo Declaration (AU 2014).

In 2009, Ghana passed Local Government Instrument 1961 (LI 1961) to devolve a set of functions from the central government to the country’s 216 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDA).

In practice, however, warehouse receipt financing has generally failed to deliver the benefits to smallholders hoped for by development economists and practitioners.

Ghana’s population is becoming younger and increasingly urbanized – by 2010, over half the population lived in urban settlements of more than 5,000 people – raising concerns among policy makers regarding the location and types of jobs required to

As a rapidly-urbanizing, lower middle-income country, Ghana is experiencing diet changes that are spurring a growing demand for processed foods.

Agricultural intensification has only taken off to a very limited extent in Ghana. Adoption of land productivity-enhancing technology is low, even in areas with proximity to urban markets.

Rising labor costs associated with increased rural-to-urban migration have compelled Ghanaian farmers to increase the use of tractors and other agricultural machines to conduct farming operations in the country (Diao et al. 2014).

Past agricultural mechanization efforts in Ghana and Nigeria have focused more on the styles of machinery used in western countries or Latin America, where average farm sizes are much larger.

In 2009, Ghana was one of the first African countries to accept the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) target of committing ten percent of government expenditure to agriculture.

Maize is an important food crop in Ghana, accounting for more than 50 percent of the country’s total cereal production.

As rice imports surge ahead of production in Ghana, increasing rice production and yields has become a priority. Annual per capita consumption of rice in Ghana grew from 17.5 kg during 1999–2001 to 24 kg during 2010–2011.

Increasing agricultural mechanization has long been of interest to many African countries.

Theories of fiscal federalism imply that determining intergovernmental transfers based on the political incentives results in inefficient allocation of resources across geographic regions.

With an average growth rate of 5 percent and a reduction of poverty by one-half over the past two decades, Ghana is a recent success story and a rising star in African development.