Deputy Agriculture Minister John Dumelo has announced that Ghana is on course to achieve large-scale domestic tomato production by the end of 2026.
According to John Dumelo, trials are underway at irrigation schemes to reduce reliance on imports from Burkina Faso.
The Deputy Minister further stressed that the Mahama government has a long-term plan to cut Ghana’s dependency on tomatoes from Burkina Faso by between 20 and 30 per cent beginning next year.
John Dumelo is quoted by a TV3 news flyer shared on social to have said, “Ghana on track for full-scale tomato production by year-end 2026”.
The Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture, speaking on JOYFM The Pulse on Tuesday, 17 February, further detailed efforts to stabilise tomato supply and reduce Ghana’s reliance on imports.
John Dumelo stated, “I just came back from the Bono East region, but I’ll be going back to be able to interact with the traders and see how best we can help them to solve our problems, our tomato demand in Ghana.”
“When you look at some of our irrigation schemes, especially the ones in the north — when you go to Tono Dam, around the Navrongo area — currently most of the farmers are farming tomatoes, but it’s on a much smaller scale. It’s more or less like a trial stage where we want to scale it up before the year ends or next year.”
“If you also go to our irrigation schemes, there are some tomato-growing farmers there, as we speak, that would have their tomatoes maybe in about two or three months’ time. All these schemes are the ones that we want to scale up, hopefully by next year.”
He added, “We’ve distributed some solar — or we’re about to distribute some solar water pumps to vegetable farmers across the country. And then the water pumps that the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources seized from galamsey operators — we distributed some last year, over a thousand of them, to small-scale vegetable farmers across the country.”
“Hopefully, when all these come on board, we’ll be able to mitigate our production of tomatoes and other vegetables across the country.”
“I’m very hopeful that next year, by this time, most of the trips that are going to Burkina Faso will reduce. When all these programmes come on board, hopefully we’ll be able to reduce our traders from going to Burkina Faso to get tomatoes.”
Also, John Dumelo asserted that Ghana cannot stop cross-border trade but must protect its traders.
The Deputy Minister added, “It has to be re-looked at, it has to be re-evaluated and see, you know, our shortcomings or the shortcomings of other authorities. The truth of the matter is that we cannot stop cross-border trade. Of course, we do encourage a lot of cross-border trade.”
“All in all, we value some of these security measures that have been in place and see how best we can protect our traders. I don’t personally want to bring up those two issues, but they are perishable assets.”
“In the next couple of days, we’ll definitely announce some of the measures that we’ve taken to protect these traders who go to Burkina Faso and other countries that are a little bit unstable. In the coming days, we’ll be announcing some of the measures.”
John Dumelo’s revelations follow the February 14, 2026, terrorist attack in Burkina Faso, which claimed the lives of 8 Ghanaian tomato traders.
Ghanaians reacting to the news stated, “The government can partner with grocery shops in different parts of the country to sell the excess produce to the citizens through them @johndumelo. My humble opinion”.
“As we should, eat what you grow. Aaba, the inferiority complex is too much. Everyday Ghana rice this, Ghana tomato that. Meanwhile of you see some of the rice people eat elsewhere that Ghanaians won’t eat, you’ll be shocked. Exhibit A, the U.S”, a netizen added.
“This should be done with ease. Pwalugu, Bolgatanga and Navrongo can supply the entire country; all they need is constant irrigation to be active throughout the year. The construction of a dam solves this problem, but here we are, people, dying because they are about their biz, one X user added.
See the post below:
Deputy Agriculture Minister John Dumelo announces that Ghana is on course to achieve large-scale domestic tomato production by the end of 2026, with trials underway at irrigation schemes to reduce reliance on imports from Burkina Faso.#3NewsGH #TV3GH pic.twitter.com/rwtQvCfYsZ
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) February 17, 2026