Prudence Attipoe, Head of Plant Quarantine at the Ministry of Agriculture, has disclosed that his outfit will ensure the halt in the importation of tomatoes from Morocco.

According to him, the halt will help the ministry evaluate the trove of tomatoes already in the country and ascertain whether they are infested or otherwise for public consumption.

His comments follow traders call on government to stop the importation of tomatoes from Morocco.

Mr Attipoe further explained that it is imperative for importers of tomatoes to follow laid down regulations in validating their products.

“We’ve told them that what they did was wrong and the way forward is that, should in case they want to import tomato again, they need to do the right thing [and] apply for a permit. “We realized that there is a virus called the tomato torrado virus in Morocco and apparently this virus is quite devastating and we are going to stop the importation of tomato from Morocco for now. We are going to look into it and see that the ones that they have brought into the country will be tested at our lab to see whether they have the virus [and] to see what we can do later on”.
Prudence Attipoe

Consultative meeting with traders

The agitation by traders led to a meeting between traders and a team from the Ministry of Agriculture with the intention to resolve the issues.

Commenting on the issue, Mr Attipoe explained that the outcome of the meeting was “fruitful” with consensus reached on the ministry’s resolve to look into the “issues that they have raised”.

“Looking at the issues, we realized that import of the fresh tomato from Morocco was without permit. Apparently, they brought the items in and we, unfortunately, did not know anything about it. Normally, if you are importing plant and plant product, that includes agro, agro-produce and other related items, you are bound by law to apply for a permit.

“Within the permit, we do a pest risk analysis to ascertain as to whether the items coming into the country will be ok… because we have pests and diseases in this country and other country’s pests and diseases may not be in Ghana. Therefore, it’s possible that through the pathway, they could enter into Ghana and affect all agriculture in terms of any crop, as in this case the tomato”.
Prudence Attipoe

Assessment of quality of tomatoes

Touching on the complaint of rot and quality of the tomatoes by traders, Mr Attipoe revealed that assessment will be predicated on the result of its lab analysis.

“Concerning the quality, unless we do our lab analysis before we’ll determine as to what is causing the rot of the tomatoes. Normally, rots are caused by bacterial and fungal infections but we may not know the particular bacteria or fungi that may be causing it. So, our lab analysis will determine that so we can further take action on that”.
Prudence Attipoe

Following the cancellation of importation from Morocco, Mr Attipoe indicated that there is no cause for concern over tomato shortages due to indigenous producers.

“In the interim, farmers are producing tomato in the country. We will be getting tomato from the Volta Region, Ada and also from Anloga. So, farmers are producing tomato, the market queens are buying them from the farmers, therefore, we have tomato in the system where you can get to the market and buy”.
Prudence Attipoe