TOMATO GLUT IMMINENT IN UPPER EAST (D/G, Wednesday March 11, 2009. PAGE 31)

THERE is an imminent tomato glut in the Upper East Region due to the lack of market for the produce.
While the reactivated Northern Star Tomato Factory is currently not functioning due to lack of funds to purchase tomatoes to feed the factory for processing, the refusal of traders from the southern part of the country, popularly called market queens, to buy tomatoes from farmers in the Upper East Region has compounded the woes of the farmers.
The market queens prefer to travel to neighbouring Burkina Faso to purchase the produce.
To ensure a win-win situation, the Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, has asked the management of Northern Star to enter into an agreement with tomato farmers and purchase the produce on credit.
Mr Mahama, who gave the directive when he undertook a fact-finding tour of the factory at Pwalugu, said this was to prevent the large tonnes of tomatoes produced in the area from going bad on the farms.
He bemoaned the lack of linkage between production and processing and promised to liaise with the ministries of Trade and Industry and Food and Agriculture on how best to raise funds to keep the factory running all-year round.
The Operations Manager of the factory, Mr Kwabena Darkwa, who conducted the Vice-President round the facility, said the plant, which was recently rehabilitated with technical and logistic support from Trusty Foods Company Limited, had the capacity to process raw tomato into paste.
He said the paste is later transported to Trusty Foods factories in Tema for canning. He said though the farmers had produced large quantities of tomatoes which could feed the factory, the lack of funds to purchase the produce had brought activities at the factory to a halt.
A group of workers who have served the factory for over 40 years seized the opportunity of the Vice-President’s visit to complain about the non-payment of their wages and other benefits and appealed to him to assist them.
The Vice-President was accompanied by the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, the Minister of the Interior, Mr Cletus Avoka, the Presidential Spokesperson, Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Upper East Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr Roy Ayariga, and the Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Alhaji Hamidu Mahama.
The Vice-President had earlier held discussions with the tomato farmers at Navrongo, where he gave the assurance that the government shared in their plight and that everything would be done to address the problem.
The President of the Tomato Farmers Association, Mr Ahmed Bogobiri, alleged that the market queens preferred travelling outside Ghana to purchase tomatoes because they smuggled goods such as cement, roofing sheets and hard liquor (Akpeteshie) in exchange for the vegetable and asked officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) to thoroughly search vehicles plying between Ghana and Burkina Faso to cart tomatoes in order to check smuggling.
He also proposed that farmers should be made to buy shares in the factory at Pwalugu to give them a say in its management.
The Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr Roy Ayariga, dismissed assertions by the market queens that tomatoes from the region had something to do with quality, stressing that quality wise, tomatoes from Ghana and Burkina Faso were at par.