The urban food system in Ghana is changing, with growth in household incomes and rapid urbanization. Such shifts in food systems commonly come with diet shifts, including increased consumption of processed foods, and may pose new opportunities and challenges for farmers, processors and consumers. However, with limited data on the topic, policymakers are ill-equipped to make informed policy decisions. Using data collected from retail inventories of packaged products carried out in eight cities in Ghana in 2015 and 2016, GSSP researchers attempt to fill this gap, analyzing the interplay of urbanization, imports, and domestic processing and packaging. Results have recently been published in the article, “The transformation of urban food systems in Ghana: Findings from inventories of processed products”.
Researchers found that imports are dominant in urban food retail outlets, especially for milled rice and tomato paste. Notably, the tomato sector is one for which the government has promoted domestic processing for decade. In addition, shares of imported products are higher in smaller cities than in Accra. Imported products are also more prevalent in traditional retail outlets than in modern retail outlets. Moreover, imported products come mainly from East Asia.
These results highlight the extent to which imports dominate the market for processed foods, especially milled rice and processed tomato products, and perhaps suggests an uphill task for import substitution strategies. It is particularly striking that import dominance is seen even in traditional shops and smaller cities. Furthermore, the dominance of products from East Asia shows strong trade integration between Ghana and those countries, ensuring cheap products for urban consumers. However, it is also a sign of weak integration between Ghana and other African countries, at least for these tradable products.
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