Tomatoes. They could be Ghana’s ‘red gold’.
The soil is ideal, and they’ve been
cultivated in the country for decades. Yet
Ghana’s tomato factories now stand empty,
and farmers are opting
to leave the country.
The reason is that tomatoes have become
gambling chips in global trade policy
- as have other products. Africa is a
lucrative market. Shipments of canned
tomatoes, milk powder and frozen
chicken from industrialized nations
promise huge profits.
Global trade policies are destroying
domestic markets and forcing people
to leave their countries. Edward for one
no longer harvests tomatoes in Ghana
but in Italy - under
appalling conditions.
Ghana built up its tomato industry
after gaining independence in 1957.
The country was keen to develop its economy
and utilize its own natural resources.
Today all of Ghana’s tomato
processing plants have shut down.
Including this one in Pwalugu. There are
many reasons: an unstable power grid,
unsuitable tomato varieties
- and globaltrade policy.
Italy, China and other countries are dumping
canned and processed tomatoes on Ghana.
It still looks fresh. That’s why I want
to come. I am security, I sleep (here),
and when I am not tired I go to fetch
water and I come to the flowers.
No one asked me. But this is good for me
and for everybody. So I have to do this.
We are the factory. It shows that the factory
is still alive. It is not completely dead.
Last year I did tomatoes, good two acres.
Before God, if you see the way,
the tomatoes were rot, laying down there.
No market. And this factory too
was not working. So
I was just crying.
Vincent Atinga now grows onions
instead of tomatoes. He also used to
work at the factory. He and other
former workers still come here.
They can’t bear the thought of
giving it up.This factory once
provided a livelihood
to an entire region.
I know the secrets of the factory. I
know the importance of the factory.
Because if this factory is working,
a lot of people are getting jobs.
So as it has closed, it is very sad.
Everything is working.
There is no fear that these machines are
not working. I am here all the time.
It gives us headache. That you have
something that could have touched lives,
it’s there, sitting with you and not working
It is something that is so frustrating.
If this factory is workable again, it
is going to be the light of the north.
Trade policies are a global competition
- and the more powerful players stand a
better chance at accessing
the most lucrative markets.
It’s the people on the
ground who lose out.
Benedicta Afrifa is a tomato farmer in
Tuobodom, in the middle of one of Ghana’s
main tomato production regions. The
many day laborers looking to be hired
during the harvest season attest
to widespread unemployment.
Even at the busiest time of
year, some won’t find work.
Nearly half of Ghana’s population
lives from agriculture.
A robust tomato growing industry
would boost growth in rural areas.
Nowhere is this industry more likely
to flourish than here in the country’s
fertile middle belt. But now that factories
are no longer buying locally grown produce,
farmers are becoming
increasingly worried.
Benedicta grows tomatoes
on a hectare of land.
We have to buy water every day when
it doesn’t rain. A tank of water
costs 120 cedis, 20 euros. And that's
not even enough for the whole farm.
We have to buy water every day, for about
a month and a half, until the rain comes.
We have a lot of problems, which make
it hard to survive in this country.
Crops grow in abundance here. The farmers
could cultivate even more land, and employ
more workers. But they lack funds. If
they want to buy seed and fertilizer,
and pay for irrigation water,
they need to take out loans.
We don’t have money for fertilizer.
Everything’s expensive. We can't sell our
harvest and end up in debt. I have
a wife and children to care for.
That’s why I'll have to head to the
desert and try my luck elsewhere.
People who make it to Europe have better
lives than we do. Life is hard for us.
Every day you see people struggling,
and still we have nothing.
I'm ready. If the chance comes today
or tomorrow, I'll head to the desert.
My farm is failing, and the
bank wants its money back.
Now that the factories are closed,
farmers such as Benedicta have to sell
their produce to the ‘Market Queens’
— who sell it on in the cities.
There's a surplus of produce
during the harvest season,
so the farmers have to sell
at rock bottom prices.
I asked for 320 cedis, they offered 270
and said others are giving even less.
At this price, I
won't earn anything.
Tomatoes are a food staple in Ghana. They
account for 40 percent of spending on
vegetables. Middle-class Ghanaians like
their tomatoes canned. Ghana could meet
at least a portion of its demand itself
- but the canned tomatoes here on the
market are not
domestic ones.
Some are from China, some are
from Italy, some are from Spain,
some are from the States.
I will be very happy if we have a company
here in Ghana and produce our own
tomatoes, and we can them. Instead of people
going to import it, and bringing it here,
spending a whole lot of money there, when
they can give that money to the country,
it helps the country to develop.
Benedicta’s husband has gone to
Italy, hoping to earn money to help
support the family; to pay for the
children’s school fees, and also so they
can invest in a house and a
well to irrigate their crops.
My husband can earn more
there than in Ghana.
He sends money every month.
For me and our two children.
Here in the village, it’s obvious which
families have relatives in Europe.
They’re the ones whose homes
are made of concrete.
Despite the problems besetting the industry,
many here continue to grow tomatoes.
Benedicta’s house is still under construction.
For now, she’s still paying rent.
Some prefer canned tomatoes because they’re
more convenient. You just add water and
they’re ready. But I
prefer fresh ones.
I have four friends who farm tomatoes, and
they're all ready to set out to the desert.
My husband is in Europe and is
making money, and I'm working here.
That's how we manage, and the children
can go to school. We also use his money
to pay rent, and part of it to
complete our house. If he were here,
it would be very hard for us.
I'm always glad to see people
leave and try their
luck elsewhere.
He’s in Italy. First he worked on an apple
farm, later on a tomato plantation,
and now he herds animals.
Most Ghanaian migrants live in
other West African countries.
Many also live in the US
and Canada And in Europe.
For Ghanaian famers, there’s no legal
route to Europe. Most pass through the
Sahara desert and cross the Mediterranean.
According to the International Organization
for Migration - or IOM - 16,000 Ghanaians took
this path to Italy in the last five years.
Many African migrants end up in
Southern Italy. The tomatoes grown here
are processed and sold in cans -
including, at low prices, in Ghana.
With production heavily subsidized,
Italian tomatoes have a
competitive advantage over
local goods in Africa.
The seasonal workers from Africa actually
contribute to the problem by working
for rock bottom wages, which
further lowers production costs.
Few of them have residence permits. The
day laborers are exploited by mafia
organizations, recruited by agents known
as caporali. These middlemen pay them
per crate, after they’ve
deducted a commission.
From morning to evening you will go and
collect may be 20 euros, 30 euros. A day!
Have you ever seen an Italian doing
this work? No farm in all Italy.
Italians work on
the machines.
I did tomatoes in Ghana and here I still do
tomatoes. We were not working like in Italy:
In Ghana we pick it one by one,
which is ripe, and leave the green.
My father is a farmer and my mother also
is a farmer. They used to grow tomatoes.
The company collapsed. That
made me try to come to Italy.
And now I live in a ghetto, you see
our building, we do it by ourselves.
Edward and the other seasonal workers
live in shanty towns, dilapidated
huts or tents in the
middle of fields.
There’s no water, no sanitary
facilities, electricity or heating.
They don’t know how I am living. They know
I am in Italy, but they don’t know where
I am living. I never told them. If I
would tell them they would worry.
No matter how you are here, you have
to fight to take care of your family,
your mother, your father and even sometimes
your cousins. When they have problems,
they will call you. And you can’t say
that you can‘t help them. So you are here
fighting. We that we are in trouble now,
we will sell our life to help our family.
In Cerignola, the Pietra di Scarto
cooperative grows organic tomatoes.
It also hires seasonal workers from Africa
— but they earn a decent wage and are
given proper contracts. They are not
day laborers at the mercy of the
exploitative Caporalato system.
Diáne Cheikh is from
Senegal and has worked
on many plantations.
It was only when I began here that
I realized what goes on at the
other plantations. I used to think it was
just the way things worked in Italy.
Now I’m here I understand what’s going on.
That we’re being exploited.
Pietro Fragasso is the head of the
cooperative. He wants to raise awareness of
the plight of the
seasonal workers.
We need to tell consumers: so that you
could buy a can of tomato puree for
40 cents, Alex, Abdoul, Giuseppe and
Antonio were exploited. They were forced
to live in terrible conditions, with no basic
rights, no running water, no electricity.
So do you still want
to buy those tomatoes?
Processed tomato products are sold for
next to nothing. Even though picking,
processing, packaging and transport
all have to be accounted for.
Profit is all that matters.
That’s why a kilo of tomatoes
often fetches as
little as five cents.
If I, as a farmer, am getting paid
just 5 cents per kilo, how am I
going to make a living? It’s impossible. I
need to buy the seedlings, irrigate them,
I need fertilizer, I need to rent
a tractor. These are fixed costs.
The only flexible costs are
the wages I pay my workers.
We mustn’t forget that the ‘caporalato’
system is a consequence. It’s a
consequence of a market that has
spiraled completely out of control.
Pietro wants to beat the system. His
tomatoes are sold through a fair-trade
organization — for 30 instead
of five cents per kilo.
Bucking the global system isn’t easy.
It involves restructuring
the entire farm-to-consumer chain.
Pietro’s goal is to prove that processed
tomato products can be made ethically.
He wants his cooperative to
serve as an example - a small
step to changing the
entire production system.
Lots of people say we need to help the
situation improve in Ghana, so that these
people don’t come here in the first place.
But global economics and politics make that
impossible. There's no tomato
processing industry in Ghana.
Which goes to show how sick the
system is, how utterly crazy.
In Europe, industrial farming, subsidies and
wage dumping are resulting in surpluses.
Cut- price European tomatoes end up
exported to international markets.
Today, Italy is just a minor player in
the global tomato industry. China is now
the world's biggest producer. It exports
tomato paste — often diluted with
cheap filler ingredients — all over
the world. 60 millions tons per year.
10 times more than Italy. The most important
metric in global exports is profitability.
Any negative impact on the countries
that import the goods is irrelevant.
Free trade is the principle that
opens the African market to exports.
After independence, African countries
introduced customs duties in order to
protect domestic farmers and emerging
industries. But now these restrictions are
being lifted, despite the fact that
most African nations still struggle to
compete on the international market.
Ghana came under international pressure
when it tried to increase import tariffs on
tomato products to 40%. They’re now at 10%,
and containers full of cut price tomatoes
continue to arrive in the country.
Economist Kwabena Otoo is familiar
with the problem - and as an academic,
he can speak more freely than the
Ghanian government, which has
to take into account
international investors.
This one is from China. Only
30% tomatoes, 70% starch.
The problem with these products is that they
take over the domestic market for tomatoes,
pushing out domestic products. So, you have
a large number of tomato farmers who cannot
sell their products.
Tomato paste and rice are not the only
products jeopardizing African markets and
threatening the livelihoods of farmers. In
2018, for example, the EU also exported
milk powder and concentrate,
and meat to West Africa.
At this market in Accra, it’s easy
to see how imports are driving
out domestic products.
It translate into job losses here. And
translates to destruction of livelihood.
It translates into poverty down here.
And it translates into frustration.
That leads young people, to want
to get out of this country.
We don’t have the capacity to
change these things because we have
lost control of our policy.
Ruanda, about two years ago,
banned the import of second-hand
clothing from the US,
and the US kicked them out of the
African Growth and Opportunity Act.
So that’s the chance the response can
be if you try to change the policy
to favour your own people. Free trade
should not destroy livelihoods. It does
make me sad, sometimes to the point of
anger. Because those who profit are
very few. The
losers are many.
Timothy Apania is an agricultural adviser in
northern Ghana, near the tomato factory in
Pwalugu that's gone out of business. As
a result, local farmers are desperate.
Many of them leave the region. Others are
experimenting with alternative crops.
Some still do grow tomatoes - but
just for their own families.
All the place was done by tomatoes. When
the Pawlugu Tomato Factory was in session,
they were making a lot of money. They told
me, they were making plenty of money,
because the factory needed it
and the market also needed it.
But what can you do? You have to survive.
So we have to
continue to put in as
much effort as we can.
The soil is good. And the tomato
fruited very well. But when it came to
the market — no market. So everything
got perished in the fields.
They would harvest but people were not
coming to buy. And this lead to suicide.
They had to take their lives. Because if
they don’t take their lives, the bank will
come after them because they
don’t have the money to pay.
Many people have left to try their luck
elsewhere. Most of them go to the cities.
“Salifu“ went first to
Kumasi, then to Accra.
Now he’s planning to make
the journey to Europe.
Neither of my children go to school.
I’m not happy about that. I know they
should go to school, but I can’t afford the
fees. Sometimes we don't even have money
to eat at night.
We’ve seen the images of dead
migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.
My wife is praying for
my safe voyage. ?.
She knows I’m going to give
our children a better future.
I will pray to God along the voyage.
God wants us to pray
and to trust in him
whatever happens.
This house is being built by
my brother who lives in Accra.
And this one, by my
brother in Kumasi.
This is my house. When I return, I
would like to tear it down and build a
concrete one, and also
one for my mother.
People like Salifu can’t just apply for a
visa, board a plane and fly to Europe.
Their only option is to save as much money
as they can and try to make their own
way there. Anyone who can afford
it, enlists the help of someone
known in the village as a ‘travel agent’.
Salifu is getting some
advice before he leaves.
We have no choice, our situation
here forces us to take this risk.
Even if I die, my children can be proud of
me. Because I won't have died stealing,
or robbing someone, but because I
wanted to give them a better future.
But it simply
wasn't God's will.
It’s hard to tell if someone’s on their way
to the market — or on their way to Europe.
Some who decide to make the
journey don’t tell their
families until they’ve
already left.
Many young men in the region are tired
of waiting for life to improve.
They get to a point where leaving
feels like their only option.
The men who hope to work on one of
Italy's tomato plantations have only
one way to reach Europe - across the
Sahara desert and the Mediterranean.
It's a journey that will cost
some of them their lives.
The Caritas relief organization has built a
chapel near the tomato fields in Apulia.
There are showers here, and the workers can
also seek advice and free medical treatment.
Edward survived the journey from Africa.
But he had an accident
in the van on the way to the tomato fields.
Under normal circumstances, this would be
covered workers' compensation, and
Edward would be paid sick leave.
But on Apulia's tomato plantations, Edward
is only paid for the crates he fills.
So he needs to get back on his
feet as quickly as possible.
If they don’t work, they don’t earn
anything. We should be providing
them with support. They need to
be given food, something to eat.?
And when they go back to work,
they’re back at square one.
They have nothing, and no
one who can help them.
Migrants contribute a substantial
share of financial aid to Ghana.
Edward sends remittances home every month.
Even though he earns so little.
He works as hard as he can, and it’s still
never enough. He lives not only with
the weight of his family’s expectations but
also with the hostility of many locals.
Many Italians think we're useless. They're
afraid of us because we're black.
They need workers, but we are not having
documents to work for them. It is very bad.
Only they know what they are doing.
My junior brother is always waiting
for the money to support him. To pay school
fees and books and anything a student needs.
I carry something, because it’s a big
responsibility to take care of my family.
Without money they can’t do anything.
So forcefully I have to get it,
I have to support them
to get a better future.
I dreamed to go back and do something
for myself, but now I’m growing.
My friends are at work. Before they come,
I will prepare something for them.
They are coming back from work.
It is 7:30 now.
Banku. In Africa you get it from fresh
maize. Because here is not many we
use semola. Italian banku. When I am
doing this banku I just remember home,
because my mother used
to do it the same.
You can’t go back home. You can’t go back
to Africa like that. We left Africa,
we have responsibilities. How can
we go back to Africa like this.
That is the reason why we can’t go back.
How many years did I spent
in this country and I go back to my
country with zero? But I know one day,
one day one day, God will answer my
prayers and I will achieve my destiny.
Near the town of Techiman, one man has
made it his mission to revitalize
the local tomato industry. When he
returned home to Ghana some years ago,
Wil Aparloo Ofori was shocked by
what he saw -- defunct factories,
desperate farmers, and tons of imported
tomatoes. After studying and working
in the US, he wants to invest in his
own country. Ghanaian tomatoes could
be a gold mine - ‘red gold’. But he’s
also aware of his social responsibility.
It is going to change the landscape,
because once we start producing
on a very very large scale, in 5, 10 years
we want to see the whole landscape changing
into producing
quality tomatoes.
Many attempts have been made to
revive the Ghanaian tomato industry.
A factory was opened here in Techiman in
2007, but it's been closed for years.
Perhaps it’s about to
get a second chance.
Buy Ghana, eat Ghana, dress Ghana.
Provide everything that you can because
this is home,
who we are.
Whilst the youth have that guarantee
of work, then they wouldn't have to
migrate in through the desert and to the
Mediterranean where they would be dying.
If the government wants to make sure that
the industry survives here in Ghana,
there has to be a way of
protecting the industries.
Buffers like reducing the imports
from outside into the country.
But if the government does not
provide that comfort zone,
then the competition will be
unbearable for us, unfortunately.
If the tomato factory were given
a fair chance, it might help
boost the region's fortunes. Trade
policies could support development
in struggling countries -
rather than hinder it.
Then Benedicta’s family might be able
to earn a living from tomato farming.
Her husband could remain at home. And if he
did decide to work in Europe for a while,
he might be able to travel there safely,
and live and work in fair conditions.
Every morning we talk, and
every evening we talk.
On certain days you see young men with
backpacks walking in groups of ten.
You know they're going to the desert.
Someone left a week ago,
but I haven't heard if
he's arrived or not.
As far as the danger goes, we
humans can die or we can live.
This journey is just like our life,
you might win or you might lose.
That's why they
make this journey.
