Tons of fresh tomatoes are decaying on farms and market centres in the Ashanti Region due to poor demand and a lack of storage facilities.
Sources revealed that hundreds of farmers and traders are watching helplessly as their tomatoes go waste.
A visit to some market centres including Kumasi racecourse, Bantama, and Tafo markets saw an abundance of the commodity due to the bumper harvest.
The situation has led to a dip in the price of the commodity as a box of tomatoes that was previously sold at GH¢ 2,000 is now being sold at GH¢100.
The regional Tomato Sellers Queen-Mother, Nana Abena Serwaa said, “Many farmers have incurred huge losses because their tomatoes are rotting due to lack of buyers as well as nowhere to store the commodity”.
Nana Serwaa who doubles as a tomato farmer said the situation is affecting them negatively since they depend on it to pay their children’s school fees as well as other expenses.
Another tomato seller who supports the farmers with capital to farm, Auntie Adwoa Abrefi also said, “We have a bumper harvest but unfortunately, we don’t have buyers and for that reason, we are incurring heavy losses”.
The farmers and the traders are therefore calling on the government to install tomato storage and preservation facilities to store and preserve the commodity to prevent them from spoiling.