By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
Akumadan (Ash), Oct. 06 GNA – The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) with funding from KOPIA Ghana has trained over 100 farmers and agricultural extension officers on greenhouse tomato production.
The training is aimed at deepening Ghana’s efforts in cutting down on tomato imports as well as enhancing the national goal of attaining self-sufficiency in tomato.
Two separate training events, involving about 50 participants each, were held at Akumadan in the Offinso North District and Dormaa East in the Bono Region for beneficiary farmers and extension officers.
Dr. Michael Kwabena Osei, the Principal Research Scientist and Tomato Breeder at CSIR-CRI, during the training explained that the project was focused on evaluating climate-smart tomato lines, demonstrating improved varieties, and building farmer capacity in greenhouse technologies.
According to the Researcher, open-field tomato production suffered low yields, poor quality and high pest and disease pressure, while greenhouse varieties on the market are expensive hybrids.
“The CSIR-CRI has developed affordable inbred and open-pollinated lines that yield as high as the expensive hybrids.
With low-cost screenhouses built from local materials, our farmers can produce quality tomatoes all year round and reduce imports,” he assured.
Farmers were taken through practical sessions from nursery to harvest – including seed tray nursery with insect nets to prevent whitefly-transmitted Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV), use of yellow traps for pest monitoring, trellising/staking, drip irrigation, fertigation, and disease management.
Mr. Prosper Adelwini, the District Director of Agriculture, Offinso North, commended CSIR-CRI and KOPIA Ghana for the practical sessions, describing the training as timely for farmers who were losing up to 40 percent of produce to diseases in open fields.
A farmer participant at Dormaa East, Madam Akosua Serwaa, said farmers had now seen how tomatoes could be grown clean and neatly inside the greenhouse.
The only assistance, she noted, would be to get the seeds and be able to build their own greenhouses to avert poor marketing during gluts.
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Benjamin Mensah
06 Oct. 2026
Reporter: Florence Afriyie Mensah
Email: [email protected]