Cameroon’s fresh tomatoes flood Nigerian markets

THE sudden reappearance of tomatoes in Nigerian markets may have left many wonder­ing what magic the govern­ment did to restore normalcy after the scourge of Tuta Ab­soluta.

Daily Sun findings reveal that while government is still looking for remedy, it has gone ahead to meet the shortfall with import of fresh tomatoes from Cameroon and Benin Republic.

At least about 70 per cent of the fresh tomatoes is coming from importation corridors, which include, Cameroon and Benin Republic.

The resort to import came after so much noise been made by stakeholders to tack­le the menace of Tomato Ebo­la with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Devel­opment promising to curb the crisis.

But the disease is still raving tomato farms across the country especially in the Northern part of Nigeria.

Despite the importa­tion from the neghbouring countries and with the aid of Greenhouse technology, which accounts for 25 per cent of tomato in the market today, the price of tomato is still on the high side.

A basket of tomatoes, which previously sold for N26,000 was being sold for between N28,000 and N40,000, de­pending on the size and qual­ity.

This also shows that the price of the fruit has increased by 400 percent as Nigerians now pay around 200 Naira for the same quantity of to­matoes, which was sold at 50 Naira few months ago fol­lowing government’s failure to tackle the moths ravaging tomato farms in the country.

Tomatoes constitutes 18 percent of all vegetables con­sumed by Nigeria’s 180 mil­lion populace, according to a research by the Agricultural Economics Department of the University of Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria.

Nigeria’s domestic de­mand for tomatoes is put at 2.3 million tonnes, while it produces only 1.8 million tonnes annually, according to the Federal Ministry of Agri­culture and Rural Develop­ment (FMARD).

This simple statistic shows that Nigeria is really doing badly in terms of tomato production. It is wor­risome too, that despite its fertile arable land Nigeria still turns to countries like Camer­oon and Benin Republic for fresh tomatoes.

The Chief Executive Of­ficer of AgroNigeria, an agric mouthpiece Mr. Richard-Mark Mbaram, who spoke with Daily Sun, said that to­matoes in the market are com­ing from two sources, massive importation from Cameroon and Benin Republic, as con­sumers are in need of the fruit.

He added: “70 per cent of what we have in the market presently is coming through those corridors I am talking about. So we have an Eastern corridor coming from Camer­oon and then we have a West­ern corridor coming from Be­nin Republic.

The second leg is from Greenhouse production. Greenhouse production from the other end of the market, is more expensive but actually the wealthy are dependent on it and so that is where they are getting services from and 25 per cent of tomato seen in the market is being done by Greenhouse.

Then there is a five per cent, which is still coming from internal produc­tion from area like Gombe where terrorism issues have kept people away from those markets. The sanctity of the field that have been retained and maintained, so Tuta Ab­soluta has not reached there in effect.”

Looking at the fact Tuta has really decimated Nigeria ca­pacity to fill the gap in tomato demand, he warned that if the issue is not addressed that Ni­geria is already looking at the first season currently wiped out by force.

He added: “We are already devastated to the extent of first season of tomato produc­tion in Nigeria. We didn’t have capacity to finally fend for it. If we don’t address it, we will have a situation where that we would have lost more seasons.

The reason, being that farmers usually and naturally would gravitate away from hy­brid crop. Naturally if a farmer see that things are not hap­pening in tomato and people are losing money, they leave tomato, and they will cut it off their leaves and wont they go into it. The more farmers go­ing into a crop is situation you already know you have a bad situation on your hand.”