Tomato farmers in trepidation as peak season approaches

osei joseph hughes jnrTomato farmers in the upper east region are left high and dry by the northern star tomatoes factory which assured them the factory’s preparedness to purchase their product to avoid repetition of a glut, diseases and poor marketing of their products which lead to many farmers committing suicide the previous years. According to the farmers the factory assured them ready market so in order to meet the requirement of the factory most of the them secured loans from the banks to farm in a large scale they said, they were left stranded with their tomatoes when the factory could not purchase their product which lead many of them to commit suicide due to the large tomato glut.

Information gathered reveals that, Northern Star Tomato Factory has so far been financed to be able to purchase the produce of the farmers in the region, but signs show pessimism that this year’s story will be different as nothing shows that it will be able to operate fully as a factory as at the time of filing this report

Late last year the minister of trade and industry, who visited the was not pleased with the setup of the factory and described the renovation of the factor is the most useless investment made by the previous government and said is a Financial lost to the state and apology of investment after the previous administration has spent about 5.8 million dollars in the rehabilitation process. She said, with her little knowledge after working in factories for so many years, the Northern Star Tomatoes Factory does not meat Ghana standard board requirement and a standard of a factory and call for full investigation into it. She however promised that, Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ministry of Trade and Industries will source funding to enable the factory to operate and later ensure that the necessary requirements are met.

After all promises and assurances farmers are still at the mercies of the tomato queens who impose on the poor farmers the amount of their sweat. Latest check at factory shows that work is still ongoing as peak season approaches.
The upper east Regional Minister, Mark Woyongo, in an interview said, he is very optimistic that the factory will start operating very soon, he said the only problem is a source of water which they are working on it, he assured farmers that by next week the factory will start buying their product, he also admitted that is very late since peak season is approaches and added most of the late farmers will enjoy


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