The Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang is in the United States of America to attend the 2025 Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue organised by the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Vice President is expected to deliver a keynote address on Ghana’s efforts in food security, sustainable agriculture, and inclusive agribusiness, and engage with development partners on strengthening collaboration for agricultural transformation.
She will also hold bilateral talks with development partners there and joins a round table discussion on innovation and agricultural transformation.
Her participation in the four-day programme which starts from 21st to 24th October 2025, demonstrates Ghana’s commitment to building resilient, inclusive, and sustainable food systems that contribute to global food security.
At a similar event Brussels earlier in October, Prof Opoku-Agyemang says Ghana is clear about moving beyond the export of raw cocoa beans to building a cocoa economy that empowers farmers and creating jobs.
She has therefore asked the European Union sustainable cocoa initiate to be partners to ensure investment in the sector to help improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers. The Vice President was speaking at the EU Sustainable Cocoa Initiative session in Brussels on the last day of the 2025 Global Gateway Forum.
The Vice President said the country needs structured farming modules that would combine investment with affordable working capital, risk sharing mechanism and technical support that reaches even small rural processors.
She urged the EU Sustainable Cocoa Initiative and the Global Gateway Framework to capitalize on this. The Vice President noted that new digital traceability systems are being rolled out to ensure transparency, combat child labour and reassure consumers.
Prof Opoku-Agyemang added that in reality global demand remained strong and African consumption is rising.
“A major risk rather is under investment and failing to capture more value as demand grows. Trade barriers also pose another challenge. Our tariffs on how beans are often zero duty rise significantly on cocoa powder, chocolate and others limiting our ability to export processed goods.” Prof Opoku-Agyemang said.
She added that cocoa is part of the country’s broader transformations indicating “our big push initiative is building infrastructure for agro-industrialization while the connect 24 pillar of our 24-hour economy ensures there is seamless flow of energy and data.”
The Veep said Ghana is clear about the road ahead stressing, the need to move beyond exporting raw beans to building a cocoa economy that empowers farmers, create jobs, develop industry and upholds sustainability.
“The EU Sustainable Cocoa Initiative can be a partner in this journey by supporting investment, the processing, unlocking financing for co-operatives and to small- and large-scale enterprises and ensuring that sustainability standards are inclusive and not punitive”.
She called on the gathering to work together to build the cocoa sector that would not only provide “effective cosmetics, healthy food products” but also “enriches the lives of the farmers and communities who made these possible.”
