The Ho Central Market (Asigame) is now flooded with tomatoes impressively displayed on the stands by traders, but selling at rock-bottom prices
The price of the vegetable has been falling steadily since July this year, following excessively abundant harvests by local farmers in the Agotime-Ziope and Akatsi North districts.
As a result of the glut, tomato sellers in the market are now incurring huge losses from their businesses.
Two of them, Vic Atsu,77, and Christine Appiah, 63, who spoke to the Daily Graphic in the market, said each of them lost about GH¢3,000 monthly, in the absence of ready and sufficient buyers of the perishable produce.
To minimise the losses, they said they now extracted the seeds from the tomatoes and sold them to farmers and gardeners, before the tomatoes went completely bad.
Sometimes, they gave the tomatoes away to buyers for next-to-nothing prices, they told this reporter.
“We took loans from micro-credit companies to buy the tomatoes from the farmers, and now we are not able to pay back the loans,” complained a distraught Ms Atsu.
Falling prices
As of Saturday (September 6), one paint container of tomatoes, which sold at the GH¢40 in July was selling at GH¢20.
The prices of other containers of the vegetable had also fallen to less than half of the amount they sold for in July.
The traders said they bought the produce from farmers in the communities of Akpokofe, Sarakope, Ziope, Atame, Vamadelafu, Kotrale, Dakpa, Kakadedzi, and Takuve, transporting them to Ho.
They made a passionate call on the government to intervene and set up storage and processing facilities for the vegetable in the Volta Region as a matter of urgency.
“This will benefit farmers, traders, and consumers, and ensure sustainability of the tomato business,” Ms Atsu said.
A further tour of the market by the Daily Graphic also revealed that the price of pepper (kpakposhito) was similarly declining.
When contacted, the Volta Regional Director of Agriculture, William Dzamefe, said to curb the trend, about 150 women were trained recently to process the tomatoes into puree to sell to the public.
“This is a cottage industry approach, funded by the Master Card Foundation in collaboration with the World Food Programme, and comes with decent packaging of the final product,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Agotime-Ziope District Chief Executive, Alfred Eklu Odikro, said discussions were underway between the assembly on one hand, and local and foreign investors on the other, to build a tomato processing factory at a strategic location in the district.
The Akatsi North DCE, Bless Kodjo Katamani, also said the assembly was set to commence similar negotiations with local and foreign investors.
