The journey of a Liberian tomato
Following a tomato from field to plate & understanding the difficulties along the supply chain
Boima has three children and a wife to support. He rents a small house from his brother-in-law and says that it is tough getting the money together to pay his children's school fees. He loses a lot of crops to pests like caterpillars. Before he had the contract and support from Harris through AIM Global, he could not afford to buy fertilizer or pesticides. "It would often run out", he says, "and that stuff is expensive so I couldn't manage to get more".
In Red Light market Harris unloads the tomatoes from the car.
He says "Before I had contracts with my farmers they were not always reliable and might not supply me when I needed".
Harris sells the carton to Sajj restaurant for $86, which is $1.50 per pound. After GROW's intervention he now has a contract with them too. This means he knows exactly when he needs vegetables each week, and how much money he will get for them. He says, "Before they would just call me when they needed food. I was unable to plan or know how much profit I would make that week". Harris now keeps records of everything he buys and sells so that he can calculate his profits and is able to reliably invest in the farmers.