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Analysis of the tomato value chain for potential product certification and international trade

Mwimba College of Agriculture, Malawi

Abstract

Tomato is one of the important vegetables in Malawi grown throughout the year for revenue generation and consumption. The entreprise is dominated by poor-resource smallholder farmers who cultivate on gardens, and relatively advanced semi-commercial farmers who practice protected cultivation (Nyondo et al, 2018). However, there is an advantage to most farmers in Malawi because most of the tomatoes produced use organic farming methods which are on high demand in national and international markets.
To improve farmer’s resource base, smallholder tomato farmers get organised in groups by support of other external actors i.e. non-governmental organisations and resulted into a rise in yield per hectare from 627.3 to 684.25metric tons in the years 2019 and 2020 respectively and the trend continues due to these initiatives.
Among many challenges, 80.4% of the farmers are encountering post-harvest losses due to the perishability of the product and lack of competitive markets for fresh tomatoes (Malidadi et al, 2022). Such may restrain Malawi to be among those countries that will attain the aspirations of the African continent’s Agenda 2063, particularly the aspiration of “a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development”.
Despite the opportunities in tomato value addition, farmers lack enough equipment and knowledge on certification of tomato processing in order to penetrate the commercial formal markets hence important to empower the farmers for increased profitability through tomato value addition and access to national and international market. This project will be helpful for the farmers to produce value added products that meet export quality.

Keywords: Certification, commercialisation, tomato value addition

Contact Address: Judith Kamanga, Mwimba College of Agriculture, Kasungu, Malawi, e-mail: judithdebsgmail.com