Ghana’s rubber industry faces its biggest crisis yet as illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, continues to devastate plantations, according to former General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), Edward Kareweh.
Appearing on Breakfast Daily on Channel One TV on Friday, September 19, 2025, Mr. Kareweh warned that galamsey has overtaken earlier threats to rubber cultivation, such as cocoa and oil palm expansion. He explained that while rubber has always competed with other cash crops for farmland, illegal mining poses a more destructive danger.
“Mainly, it used to be oil palm and cocoa because rubber grows where other crops also grow. So when you expand oil palm, then the land available for rubber expansion is taken away; if you expand cocoa production, then that land is also taken away,” he noted.
The former union leader stressed that modern galamsey operations are destroying not only rubber plantations but also oil palm and cocoa farms. “One threat then came which is dangerous than all of them, galamsey. The advent of the modern-day galamsey is destroying existing rubber plantations, oil palm plantations, and cocoa plantations,” he emphasized.
Beyond the physical destruction of farmland, Mr. Kareweh disclosed that some rubber farmers, out of frustration, have begun selling their plantations to illegal miners, further compounding the crisis.
His concerns echo recent warnings from the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), which has cautioned that rubber processing plants across the country could soon collapse due to a lack of raw materials.
As rubber remains an important cash crop for Ghana’s economy, stakeholders are calling for urgent government intervention to protect farmlands from the growing menace of illegal mining and to safeguard the future of the industry.
