Agriculture is the solution to Ghana's unemployment challenges - Employment Minister

The Minister for Labour, Employment and Job Creation, Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum, has urged Ghanaian youth to turn to agriculture as the surest path out of joblessness.

He noted that even a small, well-managed farm can generate a huge amount of money than many white-collar positions.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service's Labour Force Survey, the country's unemployment rate stood at 13.0 percent in the third quarter of 2025, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Speaking at the opening of the 3rd Ghana Horticulture International Expo in Accra on Thursday, themed "From Soil to Sovereignty: Building Ghana's Agricultural Self-Reliance," Mr Agyekum lamented that many agriculture graduates are chasing office jobs paying as little as GHS3,000 to GHS5,000 a month while the sector they trained for went underexploited.

"There are a lot of students here in Ghana who have actually completed school as agriculture graduates and are looking for jobs that will pay them 5,000 Ghana cedis, 3,000 Ghana cedis, 4,000 Ghana cedis. This[agriculture] is where to go," he said

The Minister cited his own experience farming a plot on less than an acre at his office as proof that agriculture could deliver returns far beyond a typical salary.

He pointed to pepper cultivation as one example of the untapped earning potential available to anyone with access to land.

"Someone is in demand for pepper. You have a land. You can grow pepper [and earn] more than 80,000 Ghana cedis. You say you rather want to earn 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 in a year. I think we have a solution to the unemployment situation in this country," he said.

Mr Agyekum called for less rhetoric and more practical commitment to the sector, describing the horticulture expo as proof that Ghana already has the tools to tackle unemployment if stakeholders connect their training to real production.