The destructive power of Italian tomatoes’ business

A wonderful vegetable tomato, it has an excellent taste, pleasant and appetizing appearance, as well as required nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Who could ever think about a destructive power of this vegetable for society? According to Mathilde Auvillain and Stefano Liberti italien tomatoes, not itself, but by people involved in this perverse business have left local Ghana´s farmers and spin-off sectors without a job.
20 years ago Ghana´s flourishing tomato business could feed whole local population, both customers and producers. Nowadays nobody wants any fresh local tomatoes anymore since they are much more expensive as imported tin tomato paste, therefore is became almost impossible to sell that local red vegetables and so people abandon their farms and have to look for another opportunity to survive. Sadly, but it´s a vicious cycle: Because of the destructed local tomato market a number of people have lost their permanent jobs und so now having less money to spend on food and therefore being forced to support a cheaper tomato paste imported from China and Italy, the two major markets that just have caused an oppressing of local tomato business.
What is also important to mention is the fact of misunderstanding or rather a contradiction between the Italian Producers of tomato paste and Ghana´s population. So accordingly to the interview with Angelo D’Alessio, the managing director of the Centro Esportazione Conservati Company, he has no doubt that there is “increasing demand” of Italian tomato paste in Ghana and that people there appreciate its quality and so they are happy to pay for it. He also supposes that Ghana´s population “never produce it by themselves”, because “it is too difficult to produce tomatos in such high temperatures and moreover to organize processing factories” (Angelo D’Alessio). On the other hand, as we could conduct from the authors’ investigation, there are Ghana´ people who admit that Italian tomato business has destroyed their own tomato market so now they are simply forced to buy the Italian “stuff”. Therefore it is evident that the “demand” for Italian tomato paste was created artificially. In my opinion the words of the managing director of the Centro Esportazione Conservati Company are not really convincing: Is it after all possible that Italian businessmen and Ghana´s Government are not suspecting the present situation?  
But what´s in my opinion more wrongful is the fact that – according to the Mathilde Auvillain and Stefano Liberti´s investigation – the production of all that Italian tomato paste imported to Ghana is based on the unthankful, bad paid, hard work of a number of illegal seasonal migrants from Africa and particularly from Ghana.
So the question is why nobody, nor in Brussels nor the local Ghana´s government, take the responsibility for this perverse mechanism and stop that most likely corrupted chain. Now when the public knows about the present situation, they would probably not be able to keep closing their eyes on these unjust affairs.
 
http://webapps.aljazeera.net/aje/custom/2014/italiantomato/index.html
From V.B.