Gov’t procurement must prioritise local farmers for school feeding – Dr. Ato Forson

The Minister for Finance Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has called for government procurement rules to be used to prioritise locally produced food for Ghana’s school feeding programmes.

He said the move would enable the government to leverage its purchasing power to create a reliable market for local farmers and also reduce reliance on imported food for public school feeding.

Dr Ato Forson made the call during a meeting with the leadership of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and leading industrialists as part of consultations ahead of the 2027 Budget.

The Finance Minister said government spends significant amounts on feeding under the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme as well as the school feeding programme.

He argued that the spending could be redirected to support Ghanaian farmers if procurement processes were structured to prioritise locally produced food.

“Why can't we use government purchasing power procurement law to stop the importation of food to feed our school children? Aside free secondary education feeding, we also spend on school feeding programme. The two put together, we are spending 5 billion Ghana cedis every year,” he said.

Dr Ato Forson said the government should take advantage of its procurement framework to ensure that institutions spending public funds on food are encouraged or required to source from local farmers.

He said such an approach would help address concerns raised by farmers about limited markets for their produce while ensuring that government expenditure supports domestic production.

“I think the time has come to use the procurement law to force those who are spending to buy from our farmers,” he added.