Farmers give boost to prospects for Northern Star Tomato Factory
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

Accra, Aug 2, Ghanadot - Farmers in the three northern regions have promised more prospects for Northern Star Tomato Factory (NSTF), as 6000 hectares of tomatoes are to be cultivated in the three regions, starting from October, this year, which would produce over 120,000 metric tones of fresh tomatoes annually.

To this end, over 12,000 farmers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions are being taken part in this groundbreaking programme which aims at providing sustainable raw materials for the factory.

To achieve this, the Ghana National Tomato Producers Federation under the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association of Ghana (NFFAWAG) had been formed to help address the perennial tomato shortage and glut and the habitual importation of tomato into the country.

This would also create employment to about 150,000 teeming youth across the three northern regions as well as reducing rural-migration concomitant to the northern part of the country.

Source close to the Chronicle revealed that the government through the Ministry of Trade and Industry affirmed its commitment to allocate 30% of the shares of the Northern Star Tomato Factory to farmers as a way of ensuring sustainability of the supply of raw materials to the factory.

According to the sources, the value of the 30% shares would be approximately GH¢2,000,000.00 which the farmers are prepared to pay in January, next year, whilst 20,000 metric tones of fresh tomatoes would be supplied to the factory as the farmers’ payment of their equity capital, which worth GH¢2,500,000.00 while, the balance GH¢500,000 would be the farmers’ contribution towards the installation of a canary to can tomatoes in the factory.

When the paper sought the views of the 30% shares pledged to offload to the farmers and other issues relating to the factory from the President of the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association of Ghana (NFFAWAG), Mr. Philip Abayori disclosed that out of the 120,000 metric tones, “the farmers pledged to use 20,000 metric tones to defray the cost of the 30% shares if offered to them as promised by the government.

He further disclosed that consultations between farmers and the government were underway to make this reality.

According to him, there was therefore no need for any anxiety from a certain civil society organization which recently made vile report about tomato farming in the Upper East Region.

Mr. Abayori cautioned that “the factor was not set up to process imported fresh tomatoes from any other country but rather set to process local tomatoes as an incentive for value addition to increase farmers’ incomes in the region.

Indeed, also to give the country a competitive edge of producing and processing its own agricultural products to reduce imports, create employment and alleviate poverty” in the country.

“It is therefore uncalled for civil society to start advocating the importation of fresh tomatoes into the country to process while our farmers have the capacity to grow as well as the competitive advantage in the West African Sub-region”, the President warned.

The farmers appealed to civil society to rather advocate “grow in Ghana, process in Ghana, and eat locally produced products” to serve the country from being a beggar in a comity of nations.

“We are hopefully the deal between the farmers and the government is about to come fruition. We therefore urged the farmers to exercise restraint while the government fastens out the policy that will be beneficial to both parties”, Mr. Abayori appealed.

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Farmers give boost to prospects for Northern Star Tomato Factory

Accra, Aug 2, Ghanadot - Farmers in the three northern regions have promised more prospects for Northern Star Tomato Factory (NSTF), as 6000 hectares of tomatoes are to be cultivated in the three regions ..More

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