President John Mahama Visits Kwame Awuah-Darko's Nobi Farm

Across the Afram Plains, Nobi Agriculture is steadily emerging as one of Ghana’s most
ambitious private farming projects. Led by Kwame Awuah-Darko, the 21,000-acre development
is combining irrigation infrastructure, research, and modern processing to build agriculture at
scale.

The project’s growing significance was underscored recently when John Dramani
Mahama visited the farm alongside Agriculture Minister the Honorable Eric Opoku, reflecting the
increasing national attention surrounding the vision taking shape on the land.

Across the plains where Ghana’s agricultural future is steadily taking form, Nobi Agriculture is
quietly advancing one of the country’s most ambitious private farming projects. Spanning a
planned 21,000 acres, the development is designed not simply as farmland, but as an
integrated agricultural ecosystem where water management, research, processing and storage
converge to support modern food production.

The project is the vision of Ghanaian entrepreneur Kwame Awuah-Darko, whose long-standing
interest in agriculture has evolved into a large-scale effort to demonstrate what structured,
investment-led farming can look like in Ghana.

Under his direction, the project is being developed deliberately and in phases, with 7,000 acres
currently under active development in its first stage.

The scale and ambition of the undertaking are increasingly drawing the attention of serious
institutional partners and national leadership alike. Development finance actors such as
Development Bank Ghana have taken interest in the project’s model.

On Saturday, March 21, 2026, President Mahama visited the Sikasu farm in the Afram Plains together with Agriculture Minister, Honorable Eric Opoku to observe firsthand the scale and nature of work done so far.

During the visit, the President and the Minister were given a front-row view of the systems
underpinning the project’s approach to food production. The delegation toured the farm’s crop
research institute, irrigation infrastructure, rice fields, warehouses, silos and processing
facilities, offering a comprehensive look at how the project integrates cultivation, research and
value addition within a single agricultural ecosystem.

The engagement also highlighted how projects such as Nobi Agriculture align with broader
national development ambitions, including the administration’s Volta Economic Corridor vision
and the emerging 24-Hour Economy framework, both of which place strong emphasis on
productive sectors such as agriculture.

Beyond the policy alignment, the project reflects a deeper philosophy championed by Awuah-
Darko: that agriculture must be approached as a fully integrated industry rather than a collection
of isolated farming activities.

To that end, Nobi Agriculture has prioritized foundational infrastructure capable of sustaining
productivity over the long term.

At the center of the farm’s irrigation strategy is a 23-acre reservoir with a storage capacity of
1.2 million cubic metres of water, forming the backbone of a water management system
designed to stabilize cultivation cycles in a region where rainfall variability can affect traditional
farming patterns.

Beyond cultivation, the farm has also invested heavily in post-harvest systems. Its processing
complex includes a rice mill with a capacity of three tonnes per hour, supported by a dryer, an
ultra-modern warehouse, and silo storage capable of holding 1,300 metric tonnes of paddy rice.

Together, these facilities allow the farm to move beyond primary production into value addition,
strengthening the agricultural value chain and reducing post-harvest losses.

The results are already becoming visible in the fields. Current yields are averaging 3.5 tonnes of
rice per acre, reflecting the benefits of improved seed selection, irrigation, and modern
cultivation methods implemented across the farm.

Research and innovation form another pillar of the project. Within the farm’s operations in the
Afram Plains sits a rice research institute dedicated to developing indigenous seed varieties,
helping tailor rice production to Ghana’s soil conditions and climate while strengthening local
seed development capacity.

The initiative mirrors Awuah-Darko’s broader belief that Ghana’s agricultural transformation will
depend not only on land and labor, but also on science, infrastructure and patient capital.
The project is also contributing directly to the rural economy.

Nobi Agriculture currently provides over 150 direct jobs to Ghanaian youth, creating opportunities for employment while helping build a workforce trained in modern agricultural practices.

As Ghana continues to explore pathways toward greater food security and agricultural
industrialization, projects like Nobi Agriculture illustrate the growing role of private enterprise in
shaping the sector’s future. Across the thousands of acres now under cultivation, the work
unfolding under Awuah-Darko’s leadership suggests that the next chapter of Ghanaian
agriculture may well be written at scale.

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