In Ghana, smallholder farmers are at the forefront of domestic food production. This study examined how the introduction of corporate large-scale rice production (specifically the GADCO-Fievie rice project) in a predominantly maize-producing and consuming society in Ghana interacts with the existing food system. The project, a partnership between a transnational company (GADCO) and the Fievie Traditional Area, is examined in light of international and national policies indirectly facilitating its implementation. I further examined how the Fievie community’s participation in the joint-venture addresses farmers’ autonomy, inclusion, historical exclusion, and inequality based on the intersection of political organization, gender, and native identity. The study employs three frameworks of analysis: food systems approach, political ecology, and food sovereignty. It addresses two main issues in the Ghanaian agrarian economy: the influence of corporate food production on smallholder farmers, and the potential benefits of shifting from a food security to a food sovereignty paradigm (or the integration of both). Based on 12 months ethnographic fieldwork involving interviews, life histories, participant observation and surveys, the findings indicate that while the GADCO-Fievie rice project enhanced domestic rice production, Fievie maintains a cultural preference for maize. Notably, farmers’ participation in the project was limited to those with land resource entitlement, rice production knowledge and political connections, thereby undermining farmers’ autonomy and control over production decisions. I argue that while the GADCO-Fievie partnership is significant in controlling land grabs and improving domestic rice production, it is a complex configuration of capitalism due to inequitable benefits distribution and profit maximization. Therefore, it is essential to recognize power relations in commercialized farming, anthropological understandings of culturally appropriate foods, and the embeddedness of agricultural projects in local economies. I conclude that commercialized large-scale rice production can be culturally and economically viable if local political institutions are understood and local food systems are sustained and prioritized.