Nutrition
Back to Our Roots: Growing what we eat, eating what we grow
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Did you know you can grow tomatoes, peppers, kontomire, and even carrots in plastic bottles, buckets, or old cooking pots right on your balcony or backyard?
Across Ghana, families are rediscovering the joy and power of growing their food, even with limited space and resources. With rising food prices and growing concerns about chemically treated produce, more people are turning to home gardens as a low-cost, healthy, and empowering solution to address malnutrition and food insecurity.
Malnutrition remains one of Ghana’s most urgent challenges, with children facing stunted growth and anaemia, while adults battle increasing cases of obesity and diet-related illnesses. But solving this crisis isn’t just about eating more, it’s about eating right, eating safely, and eating smart. And that starts with going back to our roots.
By planting vegetables at home, families can cut food costs, eat fresher meals, and reduce dependence on produce grown with harmful chemicals. Schools, churches, and even workplaces are joining the movement by creating small gardens to promote good nutrition and self-reliance.
The revival of traditional Ghanaian foods
At the heart of this movement is a revival of traditional Ghanaian foods. Once staples in every kitchen, crops like millet, legumes, baobab, and cocoyam are naturally packed with nutrients our bodies need. These local superfoods are making a comeback, not just for their health benefits, but also for their cultural pride and affordability. They grow well in our soil, suit our climate, and nourish our families.
Ensuring food safety and sustainability
Good nutrition also means knowing how our food is grown. With increased use of pesticides and environmental threats like illegal mining contaminating farmlands and water sources, the need for safe, sustainable farming is urgent. Home gardening allows us to control how we grow, what we grow, and how we feed our families.
Education and awareness are key. Through school programs, community cooking demos, and social media, more people are learning that nutritious eating doesn’t require imported products or expensive supplements. It starts with what’s already around us, our land, our seeds, our knowledge.
The fight against malnutrition in Ghana doesn’t have to be complicated. It starts with a simple act: planting something. Whether it’s in a sack, a bottle, or a backyard plot, growing your food is a powerful step toward better health, lower food costs, and stronger communities.
Ready to start your own garden? Here’s how
Starting your home garden might seem daunting, but it’s easier than you think. Here are three simple steps to get you going:
Choose your spot: Look for an area that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight daily. This could be a balcony, a small patch in your backyard, or even a sunny windowsill.
Pick your container: You don’t need fancy pots, you can use old buckets, used plastic bottles (cut in half with drainage holes), or even firm sacks can be perfect. Just ensure they have holes at the bottom for water to drain.
Select easy to grow crops: For beginners, start with resilient and fast-growing vegetables. Good choices in include kontomire (cocoyam leaves), spring onions, garden eggs, and various types of peppers. These thrive with minimal attention.
For more in-depth guidance and local tips, consider connecting with your local agricultural extension officers in your community.
Feature Article by Women, Media and Change on its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition Project.
Ingredients
-Cocoyam leaves (Nkontomire)
-Palm oil
-Ripped Plantain
-2 Large smoked salmon
-1 cowhide (wele)
-1 cup of Egusi
– Momoni
-3 fresh eggs
-2 large onions
-2 large tomatoes
-Pepper
-Ginger
-Garlic
Method
-Wash cocoyam leaves thoroughly under running water
-Cut cocoyam leaves into stripes and wash for the second time
-Blend tomatoes, onion, pepper, ginger, and garlic together
-Put sauce pan on fire and heat palm oil
-Add blended ingredients and allow to cook for about 5 minutes
– Wash salmon, wele and cut into cubes and add to stew
-Add salt
-Add eggs to egusi in a bowl to form paste and add it to stew
-Add to stew and allow to simmer for seven minutes
-Add cocoyam leaves to stew and allow it to cook for sometime
-Wash, peel plantain and cut into shapes
-Cook for some time (Pour water out and serve with stew)
By Linda Abrefi Wadie
Every year, Ghana produces thousands of tonnes of nutritious food but a significant share of it never reaches a plate. Fruit spoils before it’s sold. Vegetables rot in transit. Grains are ruined by poor storage. Conversations about nutrition often focus on growing more food but reducing what’s lost or wasted after harvest may be one of the fastest ways to improve food security and nutrition, without farming a single extra acre.
The cost of losing nutritious food
Fresh fruit and vegetables spoil the fastest, and without adequate storage, cooling, or transport, farmers are often forced to sell at rock-bottom prices or watch their harvest go to waste. That squeezes farmers’ incomes and shrinks the supply of nutritious food reaching local markets. As supply falls, prices rise, pushing healthy food further out of reach for the low-income households that need it most.
Nutrition begins beyond the farm gate
Cutting post-harvest losses means more nutritious food reaches families without needing more farmland or higher yields. When tomatoes, mangoes, and leafy greens are preserved through better storage, drying, or processing, they stay available and affordable for longer. Better handling also protects nutritional quality itself, so the vitamins and minerals in food aren’t lost before it ever reaches a consumer.
Supporting farmers supports nutrition
Many farmers still lack access to storage facilities, cold chains, processing equipment, and reliable transport. Strengthening these systems is a win on both ends: farmers earn more from what they grow, and households gain more affordable access to nutritious food. Local processing, such as turning surplus fruit into juices, dried fruit, or purees, can extend shelf life and cut waste even further.
What needs to change?
Reducing food loss takes coordinated action:
• Government: invest in rural roads, storage infrastructure, irrigation, and agricultural extension services.
• Private sector: expand cold storage, food processing, and distribution networks.
• Research institutions: keep developing better post-harvest preservation technology.
• Consumers: plan meals, store food properly, and make safe use of leftovers.
Looking ahead
As Ghana works to tackle malnutrition in all its forms, cutting food loss deserves a place at the top of the agenda. Growing more food matters, but making sure the food already grown actually reaches families, safely and affordably, matters just as much.
Every basket of tomatoes saved, every crate of mangoes preserved, and every bag of grain protected from spoilage adds up to better nutrition, stronger livelihoods, and a more resilient food system for the future.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition project
