Examining the contributions of the Ghana government in the growth of the oil palm industry in Ghana: a case of Twifo Oil Palm Plantation (TOPP)

The oil palm industry in Ghana has over the years been struggling to increase its production so as to meet especially, domestic market demand but this effort has not seen any success. Despite support from one Ghana government to the other, the oil palm sector continues to struggle to be successful. Different initiatives and support such as Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the President Special Initiative (PSI) on oil palm and Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) as well as support from donors such as the World Bank and IMF towards the growth and expansion of Ghana’s oil palm industry have not yielded the desired results. The decision of the government of Ghana to privatize state established oil palm plantations with the hope that private management of the sector can boost production levels has not yielded much desired results as majority of Ghana’s oil palm producers consists of independent smallholders who are not in any form of contract agreement with the estates and as such, they do not receive support from the estates nor the government which could boost their production rate. This research work sought to find out the contributions the government is giving to the oil palm sector for its growth and expansion in Ghana. The paper also discussed how contract farming plays a role in the growth of the oil palm sector in Ghana. The analysis, discussions and findings of the paper was based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data was acquired through field interviews. Secondary data was from the reviewing of existing literature by various scholars as well as report and statistics on the growth rate of Ghana’s oil palm sector. Purposive sampling technique was employed for the study and population for the study were officials of TOPP who work directly with out-growers as well as smallholders who are out-growers for TOPP. Findings from the study revealed that the government of Ghana privatized state owned oil palm plantations with the view that the private sector can best manage the sector in terms of its growth and expansion and despite several support given by the government to promote the growth of the sector, it continues to struggle to achieve self-sufficiency and this makes Ghana import more than what it produces just to meet domestic market demand for oil palm. Based on the findings of this paper, it was concluded that government support given to oil palm producers in Ghana should be given to all oil palm producers as to whether they are under contract or independent producers because supporting every producer only adds to achieving high productivity rate which saves Ghana from high importation costs. The paper goes ahead to recommend that smallholders should try and put themselves in an organized group so as to make it easy to solicit support for their production. Also, government policies for the oil palm sector should include independent smallholders who happen to form majority of Ghana’s oil palm producers.