The Chief Executive of the Chamber of Agribusiness, Ghana, Anthony Morrison has indicated that Ghana could rake in a £120 million annually through tomato exports to the United Kingdom (UK).
According to Mr. Morrison, the UK is currently experiencing a shortage because it relies on Morocco, Netherlands and Spain for supply, but for the time being, has not been able to due to the slowing down of production in these countries due to climate change.
Mr. Morrison said his outfit, in partnership with the British High Commission is working to take advantage of this challenge in the UK market by exporting Ghana’s tomatoes to the UK.
“Roughly, UK’s fresh tomato importation is about £524 million. But then, they import another £1 billion of assorted vegetables. So we will not only be looking at just the tomatoes, but other critical vegetables that the UK consumer market will need.
“Even though our initial projected earnings for the tomatoes is at £120 million, this could rise through to £200 million, depending on the quantity and other variety of vegetables that we will be able to engage them on.”
Morrison
Ghana’s export earnings in 2022, rose by 18.2 percent on a year-on-year basis to $17.41 billion mainly attributable to crude oil, gold and other exports, relative to $14.73 billion record for 2021. This means that going by Anthony Morrison’s idea of taking advantage of the tomato market in the UK in 2023, will further boost the country’s export earnings.
Meanwhile domestically, farmers continue to lament about stunted growth and dwindling sales in the agricultural industry, thus beckoned to the government and development partners for support to finance their businesses.
During an agribusiness forum recently held in Accra, the panelists asked for improved seeds, subsidized fertilizers, processing machines and transport facilities to enhance their agriculture businesses.
On how to raise this support, Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa suggested the strengthening of partnerships and collaborative efforts among traditional leaders and stakeholders, including the academia, policy makers, development agencies and agric institutions, which she believes are steps towards empowering women farmers and ensuring their sustainability.
Furthermore, the Director noted that over the years, the efforts of Agrihouse had created more productive and empowering avenues for women in the agric value chain.
The forum which was dubbed the ‘Gathering of Royals’, hosted the presence of queens from Central North East, Northern, Savanna, Upper West, Volta, Western and Western North regions. It was organized by the Agrihouse Foundation, a non-governmental agricultural capacity-building organization on the theme, ‘Championing Agri-Growth Through our Queen Mothers – the Agribooster Module’.
Farmers lament about dwindling sales for want of a better means of transportation
With transportation and dwindling sales being the challenge of some others, farmers in the Komenda-Edina-Aguafo-Abirem District in the Central Region expressed concern about the lack of a ready market for their farm produce during the harvest period. This, according to them has led to several post-harvest losses within the area.
One of the farmers, indicated that this situation is badly affecting sales. He said:
“Sometimes, the cars will get stuck or even if a car doesn’t get stuck, because of the nature of the farming, we do it randomly and so, I will be harvesting here, a friend of mine will be harvesting there. One big challenge is; as at the time I will be ready to convey the load from here to the road side, I won’t get any car and so my customer will be waiting. If he or she is not getting the load, sometimes, he has to leave me because he is also dealing with time.”
Farmer at Kobena
Asked about how they preserve the crops when sales are delayed, Mr. Eshun responded in the non-affirmative, saying there is none.
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