tomatoes they could be goners red to gold the soil is ideal and they've been cultivated in the country for decades yet ghana's tomato factories now stand empty and farmers are opting to leave the country. the reason is that tomatoes have become gambling chips in global trade policy as have other products africa is a lucrative market shipments of canned tomatoes milk powder and frozen chicken from industrialized nations promise huge profits. global trade policies are destroying domestic markets and forcing people to leave their countries edward for one no longer harvests tomatoes in ghana but in italy pulling conditions. ghana built up its tomato industry after gaining independence in 1957 the country was keen to develop its economy and utilize its own natural resources today all of ghana's tomato processing plants have shut down including this one in poilu google there are many reasons unstable power grid unsuitable tomato varieties and a global trade policy italy china and other countries are dumping canada and processed tomatoes on ghana is to look for it because that's where our crown. was created when i'm not tired i wrote of fresh water and cranky you know what i feel that aspirin is very good for me and for a body after 3 days after. the fight is still there completed. last year i did 2 months. it gets. the full golden month if you see do it. wrapped like. market and this like there was no week. so i was just crying when some tatting guy now grows onions instead of tomatoes he also used to work at the factory he and other former workers still come here they can't bear the thought of giving it up this factory once provided a livelihood to an entire region and new this is a good of the factory and mood. of the factory because if this factory is working a lot of it when i get into. it past groups is going to start. and everything is working. there's no in the fear that these machines are moving here all the time. that you have something that graft is is there to do it you cannot work it is something that is true for straight to. this factory is workable in you it is going to be the light of the north. trade policies are a global competition and the more powerful players stand a better chance at accessing the most lucrative market it's the people on the ground who lose out. benedict a free fuck is a tomato farmer into a bottle in the middle of one of ghana's main tomato production regions the many day laborers looking to be hired during the harvest season attest to widespread unemployment even at the busiest time of year some work to find while. nearly half of ghana is popular. lives from agriculture a robust tomato growing industry would boost growth in rural areas nowhere is this industry more likely to flourish than here in the country's factiva middle belt where a new mom but now the factories are no longer buying locally grown produce farmers are becoming increasingly worried. benedict gross tomatoes on the head tear of land if you believe the. government. and us back then as well you know maybe also through and through we have to buy water every day when it doesn't rain or. a tank of water cost $120.00 c.d.'s 20 euros and that's not even enough for the whole farnaby asil battle we have to buy water every day for about a month and a half until the rain comes if we have a lot of problems which makes it hard to survive in this country and i'm up and all my. crops grow in abundance here before i almost could cultivate even more land and employ more workers but they lack funds if they want to buy seed and fertilizer and pay for irrigation water they need to take out loans because it's got to be we don't have money for fertilizer everything's expensive we can't sell our harvest and end up and that. i have a life or in children to care for. that's why i'll have to head to the desert and try my luck elsewhere is it not. for. me we're going to. live almost could do more to make it to europe have better life than we do you know your life is hard for us every day you see people struggling and still. we have nothing whatever to do but know how b. and the museum already. if the chance comes today or tomorrow i'll head to the desert my farm is failing and the bank wants its money back i guess rob a genius got. money. now that the factories are closed farmers such as benedikt to have to sell their produce to the market queens to sell it on the city's. load there's a surplus of projects during the harvest season so the farmers have to sell it rock bottom prices. is the amazon might ask for 320 c.d.'s are they offered 270 and said others are getting even last time at this price i wonder in anything after happening. that about me i'm like a. firefighter and. my. tomatoes are a food staple in ghana they account for 40 percent of spending on vegetables middle class canadians like their tomatoes camp. ghana could meet at least a portion of its demand itself but the canned tomatoes here on the market are not domestic ones. come out of china come up even in summer this has been some of the street i'll be very happy if we have a company here in town that we could use a lot of mates who's coming dame instead of people points a few quarts it and then getting serious when it was a minute day when big money to that kind of tells the country to dump. benedictus husband has gone to italy hoping to earn money to help support the family to pay for the children's school fees and also so they can invest in a house and a well to irrigate their crops. and you know what it took them down here my husband can earn more there than in ghana but lucy. he sends money every month. for me and our 2 children meanwhile pledging their minds your money power. here in the village it's obvious which families have relatives in europe they're the ones whose homes are made of concrete it's. nothing. so despite the problems besetting the industry many have continued to grow tomatoes. benedictus house is still under construction for now she's still paying rent. and i'd be more serious here not because i do you do if some prefer canned tomatoes because they're more convenient you just add water and they're ready that's it that's me but i prefer fresh ones. and more imports on these 2001 just. for the sound that i have for friends who farm tomatoes. and they're all ready to set out to the desert rats and those. informal outside one month my husband is in europe and is making money and i'm working here that's how we manage marriage and children how to school. almost we also use his money to pay rent and part of it to complete our house. as if you were here it would be very hard for us i'm always glad to see to believe and try their luck elsewhere quite. hello. it is very. ileana morphy now of the. so yeah well. yes and. he's in italy he worked on an apple farm later on a tomato plantation and now he heard animals. on them. most canadian migrants live in other west african countries many also live in the u.s. and canada. and in europe. and farmers there's no deagle route to europe most pass through the sahara desert and then cross the mediterranean according to the international organization for migration or i.o.m. 16000 canadians took this path to italy in the last 5 years. many african migrants end up in southern italy but tomatoes grown here are processed and sold in cans including at low prices in ghana with production heavily subsidized italian tomatoes have a competitive advantage over local goods in africa. the seasonal workers from africa actually contribute to the problem by working for rock bottom wages which further lowers production costs few of them have residue. it's punnets but day laborers are exploited by my field and i sections recruited by agents known as puppet on the peace middleman who paid them to crate off today to talk to the commission only in the end but if you feel particularly since you feel like this you know this before you go for it and use it to have fun up with little good to come from coca-cola you know country music. from one it's moving to quickly like 28 or 30 it'll i did. to go off a doctor said my we were at the helm and you said you also. didn't even know any look at her helmet one of clothing as yet willing to offer kind of the country's a big bag with the engine. still it was in the cellar monday and it's kind of what we know from 46 know from all the telly all. from. know from it tell him what he's telling you work on the machine. i did some wanted for gone now and yeah i still don't want to. the are not working like evaluate and then you pick it 11 which are right i live deal with. my father i said. my rice also if they wish to go with the man close the company collapsed. and make me travel with an e.s.l. and live in a ghetto. and with a full bottle or you see i was good then it do if south. had worked on the other seasonal workers little shanty towns dilapidated huts or tents in the middle of fields. there's no water no sanitary facilities electricity or heating that. veteran with no rambling i. didn't know where i'm living. now never. because if i didn't head then there were worrying. that we. went to how you are here you have to fight to take off your family. or you even sometimes causes all of them doubt problem to call you and you can see that you can have been for years fighting like double know our life is like no you sell a life to have all family. in chairing your own or the p.f. try to scout to call pretty gross organic tomatoes it also hire seasonal workers from africa but they earn a decent wage and are given proper contracts that not day laborers at the mercy of the exploitative couple are allowed to system. the un shy kids from senegal and has worked on many. dante sions. but he might even need to. be you or he was only when i began here that i realized what goes on at the other plantations. i used to think it was just the way things worked in italy and now i'm here i understand what's going on. that we're being exploited he said there but. now you know made me pietro when i got so is head of the co-operative he wants to raise awareness of the plight of the seasonal workers. modernity i see why i need to tell consumers when i'm dutch so that you could buy a can of tomato puree for $0.40 alex abdul giuseppe and antonio were exploited so much that they were forced to live in terrible conditions with no basic rights no running water no electricity. so do you still want to buy those tomatoes. presence of tomato products are sold for next to nothing even though picking processing packaging and transport all have to be accounted for profit is all that matters that's why a kilo of tomatoes often fetches as little as 5 cents. said most of us that i as a farmer am getting paid just $0.05 per kilo now am i going to make a living it's impossible i need to buy the seedlings irrigate i need fertilizer i need to rent a tractor it wolf. these are costs the only flexible costs are the wages i pay my workers we mustn't forget the a cup or a lot a system is a consequence it's a consequence of a market that has spiraled completely out of control before it bonds. with. pietro wants to beat the system because tomatoes are sold through a fair trade organization for 30 instead of $0.05 per kilo. bucking the global system isn't easy it involves restructuring the entire farm to consume a chain. that i believe when you are no billionaire pietro aims to prove that process tomato products can be made ethically he wants his co-operative to serve as an example a small step to changing the entire production system. with a video that has lots of people say we need to help the situation improve their garden so that these people don't come here in the 1st place we've got to make global economics and politics make that impossible the economy is no tomato processing industry in ghana which goes to show how sick the system is how utterly crazy but the system i'm allowed to complete them in the fall. in europe industrial farming subsidies and wage dumping are resulting in surpluses cut price european tomatoes end up exported to international markets today it's really is just a minor player in the global tomato industry china is now the world's biggest producer its exports tomato paste often diluted with cheap fill in gradients all over the world $60000000.00 tons per year 10 times more than italy the most. important metric in global exports is profitability any negative impact on the countries that import the goods is irrelevant because free trade is the principle that opens the african market to exports after independence african countries introduced customs duties in order to protect domestic farmers and emerging industries but now these restrictions are being lifted despite the fact that most african nations still struggle to compete on the international market garner came under international pressure want to try to increase import tariffs on tomato products to 40 percent of that now at 10 percent and containers full of cut price tomatoes continue to arrive in the country. because. economist corbell too is familiar with the problem and as an academic he can speak more freely than the gun and government which has to take into account international investors. yeah fresh was my child not you. know not love it was that yeah wow. so this one child was. touching her son to matthew. about 70 percent spot. the problem with this product. is god. you're more or less child god is the master and this mocked at football matches. push him out. domesticus us. show you how a large number of trauma to her father has to put most of us tomato paste and rice are not the only products jeopardizing african markets and threatening the livelihoods of farmers in 21000 for example you also exported milk powder concentrate and meat to west africa. at this market in accra it's easy to see how imports are driving out domestic products translates into job losses the only translates you just ration off my view . it translates into puppets. and it translates into cash tristian values young people long to get out of this country. you do not have a capacity to change this thing because you have lost control bob what was your a while back about 3 years ago bombed and potholes sic on food from the us and us kick them out of africa and we'll find a fortune which is. what i call vicious. was the response from you if you try to change policy to violence. in the. region are destroyed lives. the bass making a song sometimes sort of trying to find out because those who profit have but if you. don't use us on men. and women will. see what you are putting out as an agricultural advisor in northern ghana me at the tomato factory employed that's gone out of business. as a result local farmers are desperate many of them leave the region others are experimenting with alternative crops some still do grow tomatoes but just for their own families for the good lord like most well another 3 legs you don't lose your manhood and much of the night job i know little. bit about. obama your problem not the one i know none of my mother. but all the places where she was all done by 2 months of when your public factor was incessant they used to make a lot of money. in the. door did it told me that they were making plenty money because do it in fact in needed it and in the market it was really good it's. one of the more left you know. how long we'll now know what. we have to survive so we have to continue to put in much effort as we come. i'm a little want to through did very well mel it killed remark in newmarket ever 10 workers in the field know how they know where people are not coming to buy and it led to say. they come to take their lives because you don't think their lives thereby will come after them they don't have and will have to pick. the best. that. many people have left to try their luck elsewhere most of them go to the cities. me. sally for went 1st to kumasi then to accra now he's planning to make the journey to europe. to america my you have neither of my children go to school in america i'm not happy about that too to the i know they should go to school in them but i can't afford the fees. sometimes we don't even have money to eat at night. just. a lot of the news we've seen the images of dead migrants in the mediterranean sea. and he says my wife is praying for my safe boy age to me you know abort are coming you know she knows i'm going to give our children a better future unknown to him aboard i'm going to choose from nothing tonight. you know i mean i was aware of the cause but i would pray to god how long the voyage and the love and whatever the god wants us to pray for us and to trust in him whatever happens are told about for today as i'm not mourning. i mumble his house is being built by my brother who lives in our hostel and this one's by my brother and this is my my when i return i would like to tear it down and build a concrete one and also one for my mother on my. wall but on the floor. one that goes in the summer when i get one i get the good gun gun gun gun. you. want. people like sally feel can't just apply for a visa board a plane and fly to europe their only option is to save as much money as they can and try to make their own way that. anyone who can afford it and lists the help of someone known in the village as a travel agent. who is getting some advice before he leaves. i don't know where you were the good lord god was good for. over a couple good or bad idea if you claim that i may. be . powerful. so someone high up in a sort. of numbs that i never was a high up. of an image of a number of the law. you also know want to. let me find mama nom full mana obama font on channel. one or on mon love numb i love in a month or 2 yes with a walk never. been telling you no i. am fond of number 9 i am what did it i am 10 i am a lady it damn can i stop am i am going to join you. about us and have all the. normal ancient. someplace on lots of earth at the time or nominee gonna pull much and not go when you not well i've got to see i've been laughing. i want to see you be laughing one day i'm going to get after me and then when i live it through and then it's kind of your back i. want to mistaken you know find help woman shame try to help and you know mom non-tonal. song for me and in the wind deformed in the wind but i got a piece in there you go watch out for me. who had you been mean we have no choice but it lar situation here forces us to take this risk of you know you can even if i die my children can be proud of me because i want them and i turn now because i won't have died stealing all robbing the someone but because i wanted to give them a better future but it simply wasn't god's will for someone from the ones you know . it's hard to tell if someone's on that way to the markets or on their way to europe . some who decide to make the journey don't tell their families until they've already left. many young men in the region are tired of waiting for life to improve they get to a point where leaving feels like their only option. for the man who hope to work on one of italy's tomato plantations have only one way to reach europe across the sahara desert and the mediterranean it's a journey that will cost some of them their lives. to. the keratitis relief organization has built a chapel near the tomato fields in a poorly there are showers here and the workers can also seek advice and free medical treatment edward survive the journey from africa but he had an accident in the van on the way to the tomato fields under normal circumstances this would be covered by workers compensation and edward would be paid sick leave but on a pulley as tomato plantations ed wood is only paid for the crates he fills so he needs to get back on his feet as quickly as possible yet i mean if they don't work they don't earn anything and he says that. we should be providing them with court and. i would need to be given food. something to eat we. have been a program. and when they go back to work they're back at square one of if you got. to talk to one. another on the internet is they have nothing and no one who can help them really if you need to. bring. migrants contribute a substantial share of financial aid to gaza that would send remittances home every month even though the un so little he works as hard as he can and it still never enough he lives not only with his way to his family's expectations but also with the hostility of many locals i said i was only 5 on the a.p. about how many italians were useless this season less than one give me cowardly sassafras they're afraid of us because we're black all last month and almost went to. this bin it was ok and we are not that window coming to our foot in his very back only they know what they are doing. doing our very well so he is with you for the money for so fucking pay school fees and. i see anything listed in. case something we close the responsibility truthful to landfall near. now without money to go enough in the 1st year and then i get it done after supply then i get a better future. well i. would have to. have. no market. for them. ever did. you think either one will love her one more than double up with her about a whole load of all your mobile. i just want to go back. and do something for myself. nice now. i'm growing. up i want to have her house but when you listen. to me. my ex welcome you fully no call. young people are sentimental and then. how many crimes can you want to know how my family came running out of money and how to shoot that man was no time to mention. and. yet they're coming back for more and they stipulate. that there's 7 states now here's the n.c. with me it's me on the column will be on amongst you for using the free blank wall and i forgot you got it from the stage when you yeah the 1st move is not many years someone. yeah i get that embankment just because i'm on my doing this bum thing why doesn't remember i've only cost my mother just today to say. there's we're going to go but you won't go go back to africa like this will go left africa with abilities wealth and you grew up with i just like to know that there's a wife and example but. how many years i spend in this country and i go back to my country. to me i knew that me one day one day when the these guys who i thought my ph and i all she was right. near the town of techy mountain one man has made it his mission to revitalize the local tomato industry when he returned home to ghana some years ago with apollo or for it was shocked by what he saw defunct factories desperate farmers and tons of imported tomatoes after studying and working in the u.s. he wants to invest in his own country. and tomatoes could be a gold mine read to gold but he's also aware of his social responsibility. is going to change. the landscape because once we start broad produce and on a lot of very large scale in 510 years we want to see their whole aska changes into producing quality. so matters. many attempts have been made to revive the gun lantern auto industry a factory was opened here in touch the man in 2007 but it's been closed for years perhaps it's about to get a 2nd chance. but gonna it's gonna burst gonna provide running thin they are clean because this is home we are. was the youth have to go and see off work going there. go after the magnet in the desert and to the military man where they will die. if the government wants to make sure that the industry surviving the house to be aware of proved to act in the investors buffer just like reducing the imports from outside into the country but if the government does not provide that comfort zone then the competition be unbearable for us unfortunately. if the tomato factory were given a fat chance it might help boost the region's fortunes. trade policies could support development in struggling countries rather than hinder it. and benedictus family might be able to earn a living from tomato farming her husband could remain at home. and if he did decide to work in europe for a while he might be able to travel back safely and live and work in fact conditions . if. you. really wanted. their land lord knows with. me and it's always he. let me give vienna every morning we talk and every evening we talk farewell on certain days you see young men with backpacks walking across a 10 but you know that they're going to the desert. where 5 hours of school for someone left a week ago but i haven't heard if he's arrived. not the 5 and as far as the danger goes we humans can die and we can live in this journey is just like our life and you might win or you might lose that's why they make this journey and if. i fail to. keep learning marched realises wait a 2nd we want the whole picture perfect some sort of make idea shift deliver us. from a measure to reality to cryptocurrency to your topics for live in an ever changing digital world let's start with to devise a chanst. shift. on t.w. . on this 77 percent beats all because you stop. the gambian smiling because it is known for its beauty. its sex tourism. legal to those affected and to government officials how does the brain does the problem on a go to meet. them beyond 30 minutes on t w. that's. what secrets lie behind. discover new adventures in 360 degree. and explore the mating world heritage sites. w world heritage 316 get the app now. this is d w news live from berlin the deadly coronavirus continues to spread more than 2000 people have now been in fact it as many new cases are detected within china and chinese officials now say they expect the outbreak will only get stronger we'll get the latest from beijing also coming up not as easy as.