Any West African knows that jollof rice is the defining dish on the menu of any home in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal.
This dish made of rice cooked in a spicy tomato stew or sauce is the centre of a long-standing debate between Nigerians and Ghanaians on which country makes the best jollof. As a Ghanaian, I am biased towards Ghana jollof.
But my preference is more than national pride; it is also an important economic issue that people don’t think about when they sit down to eat.
I want to ensure that authentic Ghana jollof rice is made from locally sourced tomato or tomato paste which is one of the most important ingredients used in this delicacy. Right now we have a majority of local tomato farmers struggling to make ends meet while we are heavily importing tomatoes.
Ghana cannot continue on this path when this puts its farmers at a disadvantaged position. Jollof seems to give us some identity and has become synonymous with Ghana, but if we truly want to protect Ghana’s ability to make jollof with pride, then we must impose tariffs that make it unprofitable to undercut local farmers.
Ghana must raise tariffs on all tomato products in order to discourage unfair practices which harm local farmers.
Tomato is an indispensable part of Ghanaian cuisine and it is heavily consumed in the processed form as tomato paste. Ghanaians consume an average of 25,000 tonnes of tomato paste in a year at a cost of about $25 million. In fact, Ghana is currently the second largest importer of tomato paste in the world after Germany.
Between 1993 and 2003 the Ghanaian tomato industry witnessed 628% increase in processed tomato imports, overtaking the market for locally processed tomatoes. This has affected the domestic processing industry and many tomato factories have closed down. The rise in imports have also shifted consumer tastes in favour of imported tomato paste, filled with additives, which threatens future growth of the local industry.
Foreign companies have set up tomato paste packing facilities in Ghana using imported bulk raw material. They do this because the tomato paste market is lucrative and tariffs are on bulk goods ( 10%) than on finished goods (35%).
This imbalance in tariffs is what needs to be fixed. It prevents a competitive environment for local processing companies. If we raise tariffs on both raw and processed tomato paste to the same level, we can protect local farmers and processors.
What might that future look like? Today, Ghana produces more than 381,015 tonnes of tomatoes annually, which is enough to meet the domestic demand for processing into paste.
It is not just a problem in Ghana. According to the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, Africa's annual food import bill is $35 billion . This is estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025 - a move which he says weakens African economies, decimates its agriculture and exports jobs from the continent.
“ It is time for Africa to move to the top of the global food value chains, through agro-industrialization and adding value to all of what it produces,” says Adesina.
It is important to cut down on imports of commodities that can readily be produced in Africa and tomatoes in Ghana are a good example of how policies can respond to this food import imbalance.
It is true that a lot of Ghana’s tomato imports comes from neighbouring African countries. There are many who would ask why we would promote increasing tariffs when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has only recently been concluded by African Union member states to encourage greater intra-Africa trade.
Regionally, West Africa is the third highest user of tomato consuming 50% in processed form and is growing annually. The reality is that we still have to protect and make a special case for tomato farmers when they incur harvest losses of between 20-40% each year. The Ghana National Tomatoes Traders and Transporters Association has expressed worry about the importation of tomatoes from Burkina Faso and its impact on local farmers. I agree that we must balance trade with growing intra-Africa trade.
Increasing tariffs on tomato paste and restricting the importation of tomatoes from neighbouring countries like Burkina Faso will help.
Cutting down imports will do more than make jollof as authentic as it should be. It will also help farmers make profitable livelihoods from this essential Ghanaian staple.
West Africans may compete as to who makes the best jollof rice, but we don't have to compete at the expense of tomato farmers who are already struggling to make meaningful livelihoods.
Mavis Owureku-Asare is a food scientist based in Ghana and an Aspen New Voices Fellow . Follow her on twitter @mowurekuasare .
