Scarcity of fresh tomatoes to hit Southern states of Nigeria

Consumers of fresh tomato vegetable in Nigeria, particularly those in the Southern part of the country, will in the next few weeks be paying more, as the supply of the commodity directly to the Nigerian market is expected to drop drastically.

The reason for the anticipated drop is attributable to the ongoing mopping up of fresh tomatoes across the tomato-growing belt of Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, and Plateau states, by indigenous tomato paste manufacturing companies.

According to BusinessDay’s findings, an equivalent of about 40 trucks of out of the 60 trucks of fresh tomatoes being supply to markets in the Southern parts of the country are currently being mopped up by the companies.

One of the markets expected to experience the drop in supply most is the ‘Mile 12 Market,’ situated in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, known to be the hub of tomato distribution into markets in the South-western part of the market.

The anticipated development is coming on the heels of the present over supply of the commodity being experienced in markets in the Northern part of the country, which is creating a glut there.

At the moment, a basket of fresh tomatoes, which sold for between N18,000 and N20,000 in most markets in the Southern part of the country during last December festive period, now sells for as low as N1,500 in the North.

Experts have attributed the fall in the price of the commodity across markets in the North to the prevailing over supply of the commodity in the recent times.

Fresh tomatoes are usually harvested between February and April in Nigeria, and about 40 percent of the total national production of the commodity is wasted annually due to poor post-harvest handling.

Richard Ogundele, who is the intervention manager on tomato value chain, in charge of wholesale and retail sector, for GEMS, confirmed this development to BusinessDay.

Ogundele said the Dangote Tomato Processing Plant, one of the 12 of such plants being floated in Nigeria, required 1,200 metric tons of fresh tomatoes on a daily basis, which is an equivalent of 40 trucks each day with capacity for 30 metric tons.

According to Ogundele, this implies that the 60 trucks of fresh tomatoes, which are being supply to the Southern markets daily in the peak of tomato season, are going to be reduced by 40 trucks when Dangote plant commences full operations in few days.

He suggested that one of the ways to mitigate the hardship of the reduction in supply was for government and other private stakeholders in the Southern states to start commercial cultivation of the commodity.