Cereal yields in Ghana have increased much faster over the past decade

Crop yields across Africa have lagged far behind the rest of the world — the regional average is around 2.5 times lower than the global average.

But some countries in the region show that yields can grow much faster. Ghana is one example. In the chart, you can see its cereal yields compared to the average for Africa as a whole.

Several government programs contributed to this growth.

In 2008, the Ghanaian government launched a fertilizer subsidy program; it had some impact on yields but was relatively modest.

The largest shift came from the introduction of the Planting for Food and Jobs program in 2017, which dedicated large public funds to distributing improved seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs to farmers.

The data shown is based on nationally reported statistics, and some researchers question the exact size of the reported gains.

But the result that yields have gone up looks robust: independent modeled assessments estimate that maize and rice production are over 40% higher than they would have been without the program.

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This page was imported from Our World in Data. “Cereal yields in Ghana have increased much faster over the past decade” by Hannah Ritchie, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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