• Ghana suspends Burkina Faso tomato imports after Titao attack
• Wholesale prices jump in Accra following trade halt
• Imports vital as domestic output lags 800,000-tonne demand

Ghana has temporarily suspended tomato imports from Burkina Faso following a terrorist attack in the northern Burkinabe town of Titao. The suspension took effect Tuesday, Feb. 17, after an attack on Saturday, Feb. 14, wounded three of the 18 traders who had traveled to Burkina Faso to buy supplies, according to the Ghana National Tomato Traders and Transporters Association and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reported by Bloomberg.

No end date has been announced. The impact was immediate. At the main Agbogbloshie market in Accra, the wholesale price of a basket of fresh tomatoes rose from 3,000 cedis, approximately 273 dollars, before the attack to 4,000 cedis, or 364 dollars, on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported.

The restriction is a setback for what has been a thriving cross-border tomato trade between the two countries. In Ghana, where tomatoes account for nearly 40 percent of household horticultural spending according to data from the International Food Policy Research Institute, official estimates put annual demand at 800,000 tonnes, driven by major urban centers including Kumasi, Accra and Takoradi.

With domestic production struggling to keep pace, Ghana relies heavily on imports from Burkina Faso, which offers higher yields and more competitive prices. According to a report by the Sahel and West Africa Club of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, up to 90 percent of tomatoes sold in the northern Ghanaian city of Tamale are sourced from Burkina Faso during the lean season. The report notes that without intra-regional trade, seasonality and production shocks would directly and significantly affect food availability, dietary diversity and prices.

Ghana imported 22.2 million dollars worth of tomatoes from its northern neighbor in 2024, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Those figures may understate the true scale of trade. The Sahel and West Africa Club says the regional tomato value chain is heavily under-reported. While combined data on recorded and unrecorded trade put Ghanaian tomato imports at around 1,700 tonnes in 2022, the organization estimates that actual imports may have reached 100,000 tonnes, based on data from the National Tomato Traders and Transporters Association.

Based on those estimates, Ghana’s tomato import market alone would amount to roughly 196 million dollars in 2022, about six times higher than the value of intra-regional tomato imports for all of West Africa recorded in official statistics.

The suspension comes as the Ghanaian government seeks to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign purchases. On Wednesday, Feb. 18, John Dumelo, deputy minister of Food and Agriculture, announced a production target of between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes over the next two to three years, particularly during the dry season.

Espoir Olodo