President John Dramani Mahama has issued a direct challenge to foreign companies currently buying and exporting Ghana’s raw cashew: invest in local processing facilities or exit the Ghanaian market altogether, marking the most forceful declaration yet of his administration’s intent to end the colonial-era model of shipping unprocessed commodities abroad.
Speaking at the inaugural Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition at the Accra International Conference Centre on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, the President was blunt. “We will no longer export raw cashew,” he said. “I invite our investment partners who export cashews to come and build the capacity to process our cashew locally. I want to travel and be able to buy cashew and see the produce of Ghana, not the produce of India or produce of some third-party country.”
The directive extended equally to shea and rubber, with Mahama setting a firm national target of processing between 50 and 60 percent of all three commodities domestically each year, backed by agro-industrial parks, fiscal incentives for private processors, and strengthened regulatory supervision through the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA).
In a moment of unusual personal candour, the President revealed that he is himself a cocoa and oil palm farmer, making his policy positions a matter of direct financial consequence to him. “When the price is reduced by the government, it affects me too. I want to be able to empathise with farmers so that when we take any policy decision, we know that it has an effect on farmers and we feel it ourselves,” he said. His remarks came as the farmgate price of cocoa was cut from GH¢3,625 to GH¢2,587 per bag following international market adjustments.
On cocoa, the President was equally pointed, arguing that Ghana’s pride in being Africa’s leading raw cocoa exporter is misplaced. “We’ve exported raw beans since Gordon Guggisberg’s time,” he said. “And to think that in the 21st century, we are still the largest leading exporter of raw cocoa beans, that is not an accolade we should take pride in. We should take pride in being the leading exporter of manufactured cocoa products.”
The summit, organised by the TCDA with World Bank support, aims to mobilise 100 million dollars in investment commitments for each of the six strategic tree crop value chains, totalling 600 million dollars across cashew, oil palm, rubber, coconut, shea and mango. TCDA has projected that each value chain alone could generate up to two billion dollars in annual export earnings by 2030 if adequate processing capacity is developed.
The President called on traditional rulers to unlock land for responsible agricultural expansion, describing customary tenure constraints as one of the biggest structural barriers to scaling tree crops. He also challenged public officials and religious leaders to invest directly in farming rather than simply advocating for others to do so. “We can’t just always talk and say people should go back to the land when you yourself are not going back to the land,” he said.
Invoking an Akan proverb, Mahama closed with a rallying call. “When you climb a good tree, that is when you are supported. Today, Ghana is climbing a good tree — the tree crop sector. We invite all Ghanaians and our partners to climb this tree with us.”
The summit runs through February 20, with each remaining day dedicated to investor engagement across specific value chains.
