Major institutional leadership reforms and establishment of firm accountability systems are needed to unlock Ghana’s potential in the tomato industry.
This will also restore the country’s oncevibrant agricultural value chain, Dr Amos Rutherford Azinu has said.
Dr Azinu, founder and chief executive officer of the Legacy Crop Improvement Centre (LCIC) in Otareso in the Akuapem North District, told the Ghana News Agency in a discussion on the tomato sector.
He spoke while reflecting on the theme “Ghana’s Tomato Industry: A Nation Sitting on Gold but Dying of Hunger: How greed, selfishness and institutional failure turned a thriving agricultural legacy into a cautionary tale.”
He said Ghana risked losing its tomato industry with enormous natural advantages because mismanagement and weak institutional discipline had overshadowed science, planning, and long-term investment.
He noted that his reflections followed a recent conversation with a journalist seeking insight into the tomato sector.
“I told him Ghana is sitting on gold but dying of hunger,” he said. “Our challenge is not climate or land. It is leadership. It is accountability.”
According to him, national attitudes toward public resources had undermined progress for decades, stressing that dishonesty, greed, selfishness, and a culture of disobedience have now become the norm.
“These behaviours weaken institutions and derail programmes that should strengthen farmers’ livelihoods.”
Dr Azinu also said Ghana had once taken a scientific and strategic approach under Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who established tomato processing factories in Wenchi in the Bono Region and in the Upper East Region.
“Nkrumah understood the agronomy,” he stated. “He knew tomatoes required vernalisation and positioned factories exactly where the crop thrives best.”
He indicated that the foundation was gradually abandoned and that “those factories collapsed through policy neglect. We shifted from production to trading.
We imported tomato paste from abroad while our capacity decayed.”
Dr Azinu added that several public and donor-funded programmes intended to revive the sector had little to show, saying: “We must ask what happened to the OBATANPA CARE Project funds for tomato seed production.”
“Money was released, but where are the seeds? Where is the accountability?”
He added that many grants targeted at seed system improvement produced more workshops and reports than tangible change in the industry.
“The sector still depends heavily on imports, which shows how little impact these interventions have made,” he added.
Dr Azinu criticised what he described as a rising appetite for conferences among agricultural professionals.
“People travel, take photographs, collect per diems and speak about Ghana’s potential,” he said. “But very little comes back to farmers in the form of new varieties or improved systems.”
He held that capacity-building trips must translate into reforms if they were to justify public or donor support, saying: “If change fails to reach the farmer, the trip benefited individuals, not Ghana.”
Dr Azinu noted that some seed associations have deviated from their mandate, saying, “They were meant to promote innovation and quality standards. Instead, many operate like platforms to access grants, not to support farmers.”
He suggested that farmers, who depended on reliable seeds, should be at the centre of every association’s agenda.
Despite these concerns, Dr Azinu noted that prioritising leadership reforms could still lead to the recovery of the tomato industry.
“The land is here. The climate is here. The blueprint is here,” he said. “What we need is integrity at every level: personal, institutional and professional.”
He called for full transparency around all agricultural grants, the restructuring of seed associations, and a return to a production-first development philosophy.
“We must stop celebrating imports,” he said. “We must value what we can grow.”
“Ghana is not poor in potential,” Dr Azinu said. “It is poor in accountability. Leadership reforms and stronger oversight can unlock the full potential of our tomato industry and secure the future of our agriculture.”
By D.I. Laary