- GHEITI Raises Food Security Alarm as Mining Encroaches on Productive Farmland
Ghana’s Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority has failed to adequately protect productive farmland from competing uses, particularly mining, according to Dr Steve Manteaw, Co-Chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, raising fresh concerns over the country’s ability to balance mineral extraction with long-term food security.
Dr Manteaw’s intervention puts the spotlight on an increasingly difficult policy conflict. Ghana wants to extract greater economic value from its mineral resources, but expanding mining activity can also place pressure on agricultural land, creating a trade-off between immediate mineral revenues and the productive capacity needed to feed a growing population.
The criticism is particularly significant because land-use planning is supposed to determine how competing economic activities are organised geographically. Where agricultural zones, mining concessions, settlements and industrial developments are not clearly protected and enforced, commercially stronger activities can gradually displace land uses whose economic value may be less immediately visible.
That risk is magnified in agriculture because the value of farmland extends beyond the crops harvested in a single season. Productive land supports livelihoods, rural employment, food supply chains and household incomes, meaning its permanent conversion can create economic consequences long after the initial development decision.
The Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority itself has acknowledged that Ghana has spatial-planning regulations but faces challenges with enforcement. Its chief executive said in June that the regulatory framework exists, but enforcement remains a significant constraint on effective spatial planning.
That admission reinforces the broader concern behind Dr Manteaw’s argument. Ghana’s problem may therefore be less about the absence of planning rules than the institutional ability to enforce them before mining, housing or other developments permanently alter productive landscapes.
Mining presents a particularly difficult test because the economic incentives are powerful. Gold and other minerals generate export earnings, royalties, taxes, employment and foreign exchange, making governments reluctant to sterilise commercially valuable deposits where extraction could generate substantial fiscal returns.
But the opportunity cost of mining cannot be measured only against the market value of the mineral extracted. Where mining displaces farmland, policymakers also have to consider lost agricultural production, environmental damage, reclamation costs and the longer-term implications for rural economies.
Those rehabilitation costs can themselves be considerable. Ghana’s Lands Ministry has said reclaiming land degraded by illegal mining can cost about US$48,000 per hectare, illustrating how expensive it can be to restore productive landscapes after damage has already occurred.
Government has consequently stepped up reclamation efforts and said in July that it was targeting the restoration of more than 2,000 acres of degraded mining land during 2026. The intervention underscores the fiscal cost of correcting land degradation after the fact rather than preventing inappropriate land-use conflicts before mining begins.
The larger economic concern is food security. Ghana’s ability to reduce dependence on imported food requires preserving productive agricultural land alongside investments in irrigation, storage, mechanisation and processing.
If high-quality farmland is progressively lost to mining, the country could find itself earning foreign exchange from minerals while simultaneously spending more of that foreign exchange importing food. That would weaken part of the economic gain created by the extractive sector.
This does not mean mining and agriculture are inherently incompatible. The challenge is establishing clear land-use priorities, identifying areas that should remain protected for agriculture and ensuring that mineral development is subject to credible environmental and spatial assessments.
It also requires stronger coordination among institutions. Mining licences, environmental permits, land-use plans and local development decisions cannot operate as separate administrative processes where one agency approves an activity without adequately considering the responsibilities of another.
GHEITI has previously argued that Ghana must evaluate mining more broadly than simply the revenues received by the state. Its recent interventions have emphasised transparency, responsible resource governance and the need to ensure that mineral wealth produces sustainable development rather than short-term gains.
Dr Manteaw has similarly argued that mineral resources are exhaustible and that the proceeds derived from them should generate lasting economic benefits. In June, he criticised the use of mineral royalties for recurrent expenditure rather than long-term development in mining communities, reinforcing his broader position that Ghana must account for the intergenerational consequences of extraction.
The farmland debate extends that logic one stage further. Mining can generate revenue today, but the land sacrificed in the process may have supported agricultural production for generations.
For policymakers, the real question is therefore not whether Ghana should choose mining over agriculture or agriculture over mining. It is whether the country has a land-use system capable of deciding where extraction makes economic sense, where farmland should be protected and how the full social and environmental costs of those decisions are incorporated.
Weak enforcement makes that calculation far more difficult. Once farms have been converted, communities displaced or land degraded, regulation becomes an exercise in remediation rather than planning.
Dr Manteaw’s warning consequently speaks to a broader weakness in Ghana’s development architecture. A country cannot simultaneously pursue food security, mineral-led growth and sustainable land management if the institutions responsible for deciding how land is used are unable to enforce those priorities.
The test for the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority and other regulators is therefore not simply whether Ghana has plans on paper. It is whether those plans can prevent economically valuable farmland from disappearing before the country has decided what it is worth to preserve.
