REVIEW OF IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - Sustainable Irrigation Development in the White Volta Sub-Basin - page 57

has contributed to the slow rate of irrigation expansion in sub-Saharan
Africa.

3.4.3 Marketing and Access to Markets

Poor access to markets for both inputs and outputs creates problems for
agricultural production on a market-oriented basis, whereby lack of markets
for certain crops after harvest leads to huge losses (Awulachew et al., 2005).
Apart from crop diseases and occasional water shortages, it is the
unreliability of markets that limits the benefits obtainable from irrigated
agriculture. Marketing of irrigated vegetables is therefore suffering from a
number of flaws (Laube et al., 2008). Factories could process perishable
vegetable crops such as tomatoes which would help to save losses and
stabilise the market. A typical example of market failure of vegetable
production was experienced in the 2006/2007 irrigation season in Northern
Ghana. A promise made to farmers to cultivate tomatoes in higher quantities
to supply a newly refurbished tomato processing factory resulted in massive
production of tomatoes that season. Unfortunately, the failure of the factory
to operate that season resulted in massive losses. This unfortunate incident
was further worsened when tomato farmers in Northern Ghana met stiff
challenge from their counterpart farmers in neighbouring Burkina Faso who
competed for the limited market in the urban centres of southern Ghana.
Marketing of irrigated products in sub-Saharan Africa at local, regional and
global markets have numerous challenges which affect the irrigation industry.
For example in Ghana, national vegetable market channels are controlled by
highly organised women trader organisations which exert a large degree of
control on commodity prices, which they frequently manipulate to the
farmers' disadvantage. Furthermore, local farmers face a high degree of
regional competition from other countries of the sub-region (Burkina Faso for
tomatoes, Mali and Niger for onions). But the largest problem stems from
the competition of European and Asian countries such as Italy, Holland,
Spain or China, where the production of vegetables is highly subsidised, and
from where large quantities of vegetables and vegetable products (such as
tomato paste) are dumped on the Ghanaian market. Artificially low world
market prices negatively affect local prices and marketing chances (Laube et
al., 2008). Addressing these marketing challenges is key to sustainable and
further upscaling of irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa.