Stakeholders want FG to address tomato pest outbreak

Stakeholders drawn from tomato growing belts in northern Nigeria are advocating for the intervention of the Federal Government in tackling the outbreak of tomato pests causing disease ravaging the region.

The stakeholders said that only urgent intervention by the government will prevent the present destructive threat which the pest known as ‘Tuta Absoluta’ posed to the cultivation of tomato in the country.

Yusuf Ado Kibiya, former commissioner for agriculture in Kano state, made the call in his presentation on behalf of the stakeholders at a one-day Town hall interface organised by AGRONIGERIA, a frontline advocacy company for the agriculture sector, in Kano.          

Kibiya, who is currently the chief executive officer, Chimande Seed Nigeria Limited, said the ravaging pests have forced more than half of the farmers in the tomato growing belt of northern states out of production.

According to him, the prevailing scarcity of the commodity in most of the open markets across the country was attributable to the outbreak of the deadly pest disease.

The former commissioner noted that the worst affected states are: Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Kaduna, the states that produced the biggest bulk of the tomatoes being consumed in the country.

He disclosed that the outbreak of the disease is also negatively impacting on the resolve of governments of the tomato growing region, and Federal Government to attract needed investments to grow the sector.

Kibiya, who is also a director in Dangote Farms, established to provide raw –material for the new Tomato Processing Plant built by the Dangote Group of Companies, revealed that the outbreak of the disease is what is preventing the commencement of operations by the company.

He stated that the disease has almost totally destroyed the Tomatoes planted at the Dangote Farm which is situated in Kadawa farming belt of the commercial city of Kano.

Speaking in the same vein, Danladi Garba, chairman, Tractor Owners & Hiring Facilities Association of Nigeria, also lamented the negative consequences which the disease outbreak is having on their business.

Garba pointed out that the disease has pushed most of their clients, involved in the cultivation of tomatoes production out of operation, which is subsequently affecting the revenue accruable to them from land cultivation.

“The impact of the outbreak of ‘Tuta Absoluta’ pests causing disease is not limited to the farmers alone; it is also affecting us who are involved in the business of land preparation, and cultivation.

“As you are aware our business of tractor hiring was established through credit from the banks, and with less activities being recorded in tomato sector, it mean less activities for us, and as I am talking to you now we have outstanding loan obligation of over N60 million to service with some commercial banks” he revealed.

However, one of the stakeholders, who participated in the interface, Hamza Mahuta, a campaign management specialist, working for Syngenta Nigeria Limited, disclosed that his company has discovered pesticide formulas that can be used to arrest the pests causing disease.

He however, hinted that the discovered pesticide is currently not available in the market, but needed to be produced based on order from his parent company in South Africa.

ADEOLA AJAKAIYE

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