By Reuben Abati
One of the major news items in circulation has been the scarcity
of tomato. Incidentally, Nigeria is (was) the 14th largest producer of tomato
in the world and the second largest producer in Africa, after Egypt, but our
country hardly produces enough to meet the local demand of about 2.3 million
tonnes, and lacks the capacity to ensure an effective storage or value chain
processing of what is produced. Out of the 1.8 million tonnes that the country
produces annually, 900, 000 tonnes are left to rot and waste. Meanwhile,
tomato-processing companies in the country operate below capacity and many of
them have had to shut down.
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The
CEO of Erisco Foods, Lagos,
Eric Umeofia laments that tomato processing companies lack access to foreign
exchange to enable them buy heat-resistant seedlings and other tools that would
help ensure the country’s sufficiency in local production of tomato paste.
Similarly, Dangote Tomato Factory recently suspended operations due to the
scarcity of tomatoes and the assault on its tomato farms by a tomato leaves
destroying moth, known as “tuta absoluta” – a South American native, also known
as the Tomato Ebola, because of its Ebola-like characteristics.
Other
reasons have been advanced for the scarcity of tomatoes in our markets: the
fuel crisis which has driven up costs making it difficult and expensive for
Northern tomato farmers to bring tomatoes to the South, insurgency in the North
East which has resulted in the closure of many tomato farms in that region,
thus cutting off national output, the recent ethnic crisis in Mile 2, during
which Hausa-Fulani traders and other marketers engaged in a murderous brawl,
climate-change induced drought and heat wave in the Northern-tomato producing
states of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Plateau, Kano and Gombe. In the best
of seasons, Nigeria
spends $1.5 billion annually on the importation of tomato products. The cost in
this regard, seems certain to rise.
Already,
the effect of this tomato blight is being felt in households. Whereas a few
months ago, a basket of tomato was about N5, 000, it is now about N40, 000 per
basket. Housewives are protesting bitterly about how a piece of tomato
vegetable has jumped up by about 650%, such that three pieces now go for as
much as N500. Tomato in Nigeria
today is thus more expensive than a litre of petrol! I have it on good
authority, that in those face-me-I-face-you quarters where the poor live, it
has in fact become risky to leave a tin of tomato paste carelessly or fresh
tomatoes lying around: they would most certainly be stolen, and there have been
reports of soup pots suddenly vanishing should the owner take a minute from the
communal kitchen to use the loo. Many are resorting to desperate measures to
sort out a growing epidemic of empty stomachs and empty pockets. Unless this
matter is addressed seriously and urgently, the social crisis may be far too
costly in both the short and the long run: hungry people could become sick and
angry, hungry citizens could become thieves and a nuisance, they could also
become angry voters and a rebellious populace.
