The salt paradox

By Kwame A. APEANING

Ghana sits on one of West Africa’s most significant natural salt endowments. From the vast pans of Ada and Songor to the Keta Lagoon and the coastal belt stretching westward, salt has been harvested for centuries and traded across the sub-region long before colonial borders existed.

Yet, in a puzzling contradiction, many Ghanaian industries continue to import salt often at high foreign exchange cost, while local producers struggle to scale, modernize, and meet industrial demand. This is the salt paradox.

I choose to call it abundance without confidence, sascartis though but on paper, Ghana has enough salt to supply its domestic market and export competitively within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In practice, industries cite concerns over consistency, quality specifications, volume reliability, and logistics. These concerns are not entirely unfounded.

Much of Ghana’s salt production remains small-scale, seasonal, and under-mechanized. However, the deeper issue is not capacity alone but the absence of structured industrial partnerships that would enable producers to grow into reliable suppliers. Industries demand scale before commitment; producers need commitment before they can scale. The result is a stalemate that keeps imports flowing.

Furthermore, imports is increasingly becoming a comfort zone for industries .Imported salt arrives with predictable specifications, standardized packaging, and long-term supply contracts backed by foreign processors and financiers. For manufacturers in food processing, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and oil and gas, this predictability reduces operational risk.

Local salt, despite its availability, is often treated as a raw commodity rather than an industrial input worthy of investment. This mindset creates a comfort zone where industries externalize supply development costs to foreign partners while overlooking the long-term economic cost of import dependence—foreign exchange pressure, exposure to global price shocks, and supply chain disruptions.

Also financing over the years has been the missing bridge Local salt producers face limited access to patient capital. Financial institutions often classify salt production as high risk, ignoring its strategic importance to food security, public health (iodization), and industrial growth. Without affordable financing, producers cannot invest in modern harvesting technology, washing plants, quality control systems, storage, or year-round production infrastructure.

Ironically, industries that could anchor these investments through off-take agreements rarely do so. Instead of partnering producers to de-risk financing, industries choose imports that perpetuate the very capacity gaps they complain about.

More importantly let’s talk about quality as a system and not a coincidence. Industrial-grade salt requires more than natural abundance; it requires systems—standards, processing, traceability, and compliance. These systems do not emerge spontaneously.

They are built through deliberate collaboration between producers, regulators, and end-users.Countries that dominate global salt exports did not start with perfect quality. They invested in producer upgrading, shared technical expertise, and co-developed standards. Ghana’s industries have largely opted out of this role, expecting world-class outputs from under-resourced producers, whiles the likes of India and Egypt are heavily investing in modern techniques and technologies that is globally envied.

Policies without industrial alignment is a major concern, successive governments and donar partners have acknowledged salt as a strategic resource, yet policy implementation has been fragmented. Industrial policy, trade policy, and local content frameworks rarely converge around salt.

Incentives to import often outweigh incentives to source locally. Without clear signals that reward domestic sourcing and penalize avoidable imports, industries will continue to follow the path of least resistance.AfCFTA and The Chamber of Salt Producers and Exporters Ghana (CSPEG) presents a fresh opportunity, but only if Ghana first organizes its domestic value chain. Export ambition without domestic industrial confidence is unsustainable.

The back stop at the case of partnership and profit sharing, which is cardinal. Supporting local producers is not charity; it is smart business. Structured partnerships,long-term supply contracts, joint processing facilities, shared logistics, and profit-sharing models can guarantee quality, stabilize supply, and reduce costs over time. Industries gain supply security and reputational value, while producers gain scale, technology, and predictable income .Such models already exist in agriculture and mining. There is no reason salt should remain excluded.

Finally, breaking the salt paradox- this persists because industries have chosen imports over engagement. Breaking it requires a shift in mindset from buying salt to building supply chains. Ghana does not lack salt; it lacks coordinated action.If industries, financiers, and policymakers align around local sourcing and producer development, Ghana can move from paradox to prosperity. Until then, the country will continue importing what it has in abundance—while exporting jobs, value, and opportunity.

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