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Vegetables are increasingly becoming an important commodity for both domestic and export markets. They have great potential to improve nutrition and health of consumers. Despite the nutritional importance of vegetables, the sub sector is faced with several challenges. Some of these include human resource gap, biotic and abiotic stresses, lack of quality vegetable seeds for smallholder farmers and lack of regulation of import of sub-standard vegetable seeds. Very few improved vegetable lines have been evaluated and tested in Ghana for dissemination to farmers. Seed companies are also limited and spatially located far from most producers, especially in rural communities. Weak linkages exist between vegetable producers and actors of the supply chain preventing access to quality seed for production. Information on the seed industry is limited which affects investments to the industry. Access to quality seed is one of the major production challenges in Ghana. The commonest vegetable crops in Ghana include tomato, pepper/chili and eggplant. Among them tomato has a high demand which exceeds supply therefore, local production is augmented by imports from neighboring countries. In spite of the importance of tomato in Ghana, past tomato breeding programmes or research have not been systematic and had not led to the development of new varieties that meet the needs of consumers as well as environmental stresses. Research work in the past concentrated on agronomy, physiology and protection with very little on breeding work. Until recently, development of the crop in terms of breeding new varieties as well as breeders was not organized. Tomato breeding actively commenced in the country’s major research institutions. Currently two institutions; CSIR-Crops Research Institute and WACCI-University of Ghana have released some tomato varieties. These varieties were only released last year and happened to be the first ever varieties released in Ghana. This paper therefore gives an overview of vegetable production in Ghana with emphasis on tomato production trends in Ghana, tomato production constraints, past tomato breeding programmes or research in the country and future tomato breeding objectives which will serve as a locus for developing future tomato breeding objectives.

Corresponding author’s email address: oranigh@gmail.com

Les Dr Michael Osei et Ruth Prempeh souhaitent développer des collaborations avec des scientifiques d’INRAE. Ils seront présents sur le site INRAE d’Avignon du 10 au 13 octobre. Si vous voulez discuter avec eux, merci de contacter Bernard Caromel bernard.caromel@inrae.fr