Across West Africa John Dumelo is one of the most successful Ghanaian actors featuring in over 100 movies after making his debut on ‘Baby thief’ at age seven in 1991.
Although the movie industry in Ghana has shrunk in the last decade, he still commands a lot of respect especially among Ghana’s youth as evidenced on social media where he actively engages his over 8 million followers.
Unlike many of his contemporaries who transitioned into directing and production in the glory days of Ghanaian film, Dumelo now spends more time on the farms than on movie sets. He is leading a campaign to get more youth involved in agriculture.
He quoted, By getting into farming I want to motivate a lot of youth to go into agriculture because I am certain that agriculture will make Ghana great,” he says.
Dumelo’s agriculture journey started in 2012. A decade later, he owns more than 2000 acres of farmlands scattered across Ghana, producing maize, rice, ginger, mushrooms, cabbage and rearing snails and livestock.
Between 2012 and 2014 I travelled extensively around the country and found that millions of acres of arable lands lay fallow, but we were still importing food. This did not make sense to me and so I decided to get involved and I love it so far,” he says.
Dumelo says he wants to use his influence to encourage many young people to go into agriculture to revolutionise the sector and reduce Ghana’s food imports.
A rice processing factory in Ghana can cost about $1m to set up, but it is a worthy investment in Ghana where there is a growing push for local rice consumption, Dumelo believes.
“I am pushing th[e] eating made-in-Ghana campaign so that we stop importing poultry for instance from other countries… It is expensive to set up food processing units, but it is necessary for Ghana’s agriculture,” he says.
The actor is constructing a ginger processing factory in the Guan district of the Oti region, with plans for a rice mill within five years.
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