Agric Ministry is bogus – Tomato Farmers

Executive Member of the National Tomato Traders and Transport Association, Agyenim Boateng has expressed disappointment over government ways and means of developing the tomato sector.

According to him, Ghana loses 100 million dollars because of high import of the commodity into the country.

Figures from the Chamber of the Agribusiness Ghana indicate the global tomato industry is projected to be worth 11 billion dollars.

In 2019, it was worth eight billion dollars out of which Africa had 9.4 percent and Europe had 47 percent of Global trade.

In Africa, Ghana lies 10th behind Kenya and Egypt with a production capacity of 380,000 metric tonnes and consumption capacity is at 480,000 tonnes unfortunately 80% of the tomato consumed in Ghana is imported from Neighboring Burkina Faso.

Ghana further imports 120,000 of processed tomatoes pushing the consumption rate to almost 800,000 tonnes per annum.

Speaking in an interview with 3FM, Agyenim Boateng said “Our Agric Ministry is bogus. Very very bogus. Ghana has better weather than Burkina Faso. When you get to Burkina Faso they have the savannah region as I speak to you now Burkina Faso have 87 dams with 73,000 workers on one dam.

“Some of the dams are like Lake Bosomtwe and the government has purchased pumping machines around the dams, they will sponsor you from day one if you are a young man and you want to enter into farming they sponsor you from day one. When it gets to harvesting, the government comes around and takes its share and then the farmer takes the profit”.

The CEO of the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana said, “Ghana has poorer germination seeds compared to Burkina Faso. Their seeds are not imported; the government sponsors their seed breeders and scientists. There is no locally bred seeds registered in Ghana catalogue as at 2019”.