On 23 April 2010, farmers, traders, processors, agribusiness, Ghanaian and international academics, donors, and officials met in Accra for an exchange of views on how to revive the strategic but ailing tomato sector.

In Ghana, the agricultural sector in general and the tomato sector in particular have not met their potential.

Ghana’s commitment to the tomato sector has its roots in the 1960s when three large tomato processing plants were established in the country.

"Agriculture has been the backbone of a Ghanaian economy that has recorded positive per capita GDP growth over the last 20 years.

"In July 2008, the government of Ghana instituted a country-wide subsidy on 50Kg bags of four types of fertilizer in an effort to mitigate the effect of rising energy and food prices.

"Recent increases in cereals prices raise questions about agricultural priorities in Ghana.

"The deregulation of Ghana’s domestic cocoa supply chain that took place in the early 1990s was expected to bring competition among different private buyers and to generate a number of production incentives to the farmers.

"Using a two year panel dataset, this paper offers an empirical investigation of the unprecedented production boom episode observed in Ghana's cocoa sector between 2002 and 2004.

The recent surge in world commodity prices might alter the role of traditional export crops in African economies.

"This paper explores disparities in local public service provision between decentralized districts in Ghana using district and household level data.

Recent increases in cereals prices raise questions about agricultural priorities in Ghana.

""This paper sets out to identify avenues for pro-poor growth in Ghana, focussing on agricultural opportunities, particularly in northern Ghana.

Ghana has made considerable progress over the last 20 years in sustaining economic growth and reducing poverty. The Government of Ghana has declared its new development goal of reaching middle-income status by 2015.

Developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, continue to face insurmountable challenges in building and sustaining capacity for development...

""Smallholders in Ghana, as elsewhere, are widely considered to be the largest as well as the most vulnerable component of the rural sector.

""The Government of Ghana has identified accelerated growth in agriculture as the source of its overall Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) and reaching middle-income status by 2015.

""An economywide, multimarket model is constructed for Ghana and the effects of agricultural soil erosion on crop yields are explicitly modeled at the subnational regional level for eight main staple crops.

Agricultural trade policies, in particular import tariffs to protect domestic production, constitute a highly contested field of agricultural policy.

""Ghana’s Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II; November, 2005) which spans the period 2006 – 2009 intends to shift the strategic focus of the country’s development agenda from the direct anti-poverty objectives of the GPRS I t

""Access to guaranteed markets for produce and for the acquisition of inputs is a major problem confronting smallholders...