It is an undeniable fact that the country's economic fortunes have been tied to agriculture, whose average contributions to GDP were 60% in the 1970s, 54% in the 1980s and 36% in the last half of the 1990s. Agriculture employs about 60% of the economically active of the country's 18 million people (Ghana Statistical Service, 2000). The performance of the agricultural sector has lagged behind that of services and industry in the last 10 to 15 years. In the last half of the 1980s, performance in the sector dragged down growth in total GDP; in the 1990s, when growth in services and industry slackened, growth in agriculture was not sufficient to pull economy growth with it. With population growing at 2.6%, per capita GDP declined from US$439 in 1993 to US$346 in 2001. (ROA - FAO 2003)

The Agriculture sector in the developed economies have played a significant role earlier in their development processes, in setting the development agenda of these economies through the generation of employment and value addition to produce. This has been the basis for the industrialisation of these countries. In Ghana, successive governments since the attainment of independence have tried different schemes and models to make agriculture the leading economic sector. They have somewhat succeeded in that (agriculture has the largest share of GDP) but failed woefully to utilize the full potential that it presents to improve the livelihoods of majority of its people. The argument is often made that the fact that the food crop sector in Ghana is dominated by small-holder farmers, cultivatng on average between 2ha to 5ha makes it difficult to provide meaningful support to them. However, the smallness of farms in the cash crop sector, including cocoa, has not prevented governments from developing the cocoa sector as the leading sector in terms of its share to agriculture GDP. Though in small lots, one characteristic of small-holder farms is that they adjoin each other in what can be described as large plantations with multiple ownership.

The miserable state of our rice, poultry and tomato sectors are examples of how bad polices could endanger a country's food security, with its attendant job losses in the sector, low value addition and the increased dependence on imports of these same products.

Trade
Ghana is among a group of developing countries that was forced by IMF policy to open up its economy for trade through the reduction of import tariffs and the removal of other import restrictions that were in place to protect farmers and producers, especially value addition. This may not have been a problem of alarming proportions, if similarly, countries with which Ghana trades also reduced tariffs and removed barriers across board. But this is not the case, whilst the IMF and WB are forcing our government not to support its farmers and producers, developed countries have increased subsidies many folds to their farmers and producers to produce cheaply and export to our opened markets, in what is described as dumping. Developed countries have also put in place measures such as tariff peaks and tariff escalations and non-tariff measures to ensure that value added products from developing countries do not enter their markets.