…FG Should Open Borders, Subsidise Fertilisers — MBF, Northern Youths

The reasons for the current high prices of tomatoes, according to farmers, can be traced to high cost of inputs, insecurity, tuta absoluta, the most serious insect pest of tomato crops, logistics, among others challenges.

But the farmers have assured that the current crisis would ease by September as efforts are geared towards addressing the challenges.

Nigeria is the second largest produc­er of tomatoes in Africa and 12th in the world.

Gombe, Kaduna, Bauchi, Kano, Kat­sina, Benue, Jigawa and Plateau states engage in commercial production of the vegetable.

The farmers also pointed out that to­matoes do not do well during the rainy season, especially in the open fields, where they attract lots of diseases that attack the crop.

Alhaji Sani Danladi, National Secre­tary, National Tomato Growers, Proces­sors, and Marketers Association of Ni­geria, said that the price of tomatoes has started dropping unlike a few month ago.

Danladi explained that the major reasons for the scarcity of tomatoes are non-availability of inputs, tuta absolu­ta, and insecurity in some parts of the country.

 According to him, insecurity prevented some of the farmers from going to their farms and some that did so could not afford the input to enable them to plant as they ought to.

He said: “The major reason for the shortage is non-availability of inputs, Tuta abosluta in some ar­eas, and insecurity that prevented them from going to the farm.

“The high cost of inputs affect­ed some farmers and they could not afford the inputs to plant the way they used to. Those are part of the reasons why we are still experiencing shortage of toma­toes.”

Danladi, however, pointed out that most of the farmers have started transplanting at this time as the wet season has began in the north, especially in the North-West.

According to him, between late August and September, to­matoes coming from the north­ern part of the country would be in abundance.

While decrying the loss of the produce and other agricultural products to tuta absoluta, Dan­ladi emphasised that states like Kano, Kastina, Kaduna, Gombe and Plateau, among others, were the worst hit.

While lamenting the pric­es of fertiliser, Danladi said that its prices had doubled from N20,000 per bag in 2023 to N40,000 in 2024.

“It is common knowledge that tomatoes do not do well in the rainy season and coupled with the tuta absoluta, which affected a lot of farms and insecurity, but by September new tomatoes will start coming out,” he assured.

Also, Dr. Mohammed Atanda, Executive Director, the National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), pointed out that the high cost of input was a major challenge.

He further mentioned that the apathy of Nigerians to farming was escalating the current chal­lenge.

He noted that a few years ago, there was also a supply of toma­toes from the South-West, stress­ing that during the last rainy sea­son, the region supplied the north with tomato produce.

He regretted that many able-bodied men and agricultur­al enthusiasts have taken to other menial jobs, including tricycles, motorcycles and other forms of transportation.

“Tomatoes do not like water and from March to July, there are no tomatoes coming from the northern part. The South-West states like Osun, Ogun, Kwara, and the likes are supposed to fill the gap during this period; they also supplied tomatoes in the last five to 10 years to the north.

“We all know that there is go­ing to be a rain break from March to July where there will not be tomato supply from the north because the Northern tomato farmers want to quickly harvest before the tuta absoluta comes. It is a factor of high increase in temperature.

“They would have harvest­ed in February because no one would want the heat to meet their tomatoes on the field. So, a lot of them have finished harvesting because they start planting from October to January. By February, they harvest; so by March, there will be a decline in the supply of tomatoes from the north. Ordinarily, it’s supposed to be backed up by the supply from the southern part and that is not available.”

Like Danladi, Atanda also mentioned the high cost of trans­portation and proximity of farms to the end market as the two rea­sons for the high prices of tomato in the market.

“Some of them alleged that they pay up to millions of naira for a truck before they get to La­gos. The cost of production and the cost of transportation also count,” he said.

On the issue of pepper, Atanda explained that this was due more to climate change.

He explained that in Nigeria, between November and Decem­ber, there is also the heat wave in the northern part of the country, which aborts most of the flower­ing peppers, while flowering even without fruiting.

“That has a consequential ef­fect on the high prices of pepper,” he added.

On the issue of tuta absoluta, Atanda pointed out that the Insti­tute came up with an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system, a total solution that has to do with biopesticide environmen­tal-friendly organic chemicals to take care of pests.

But he decried that most farm­ers are not coming forward for the solution as expected.

“The farmers know where to get the solution; we also devel­oped a seed variety that can even withstand the weather in the northern part, but the question is how many people are going to farming now?” He queried.

Bola Oyeleke, National Pres­ident of the Tomatoes and Or­chard Producers Association of Nigeria (TOPAN), said that the nation needed to start working on its local seeds, while also de­centralising agriculture in order for every part of the country to embrace the profession.

He maintained that there was the need to increase production and yield, stressing that many processing factories were now springing up, which needed raw materials to process.

“We need to embrace agricul­ture and not just leave it to the north alone; we have to see how we decentralise agriculture, espe­cially the key commodities that are very useful for the country when it comes to tomatoes and other commodities.

“We need to increase our pro­duction and our yield and again due to the current development that many factories and process­ing machines are coming into the system, they need these raw materials to process.

“The more the factory de­mand for the raw material, the more the taste for consumption of fresh tomatoes increases, also our population is increasing so we need to start looking ahead to Nigeria’s future to develop this sector,” he said.

FG Should Open Borders, Subsidise Fertilisers – MBF, Northern Youths

Meanwhile, the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) and the North­ern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) have proffered solutions to the rising food insecurity in the country.

The Publicity Secretary of Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Dr. Isuwa Dogo, in a chat with Daily Independent noted that among other interventions, the borders should be opened.

He said, “Banning impor­tation of rice has outlived its usefulness. If they allow impor­tation of rice there’s a possibility that the price of rice will drop by more than half. They should also remove the duties on the impor­tation of rice. It’s one of the most important aspects.

“We saw in social media where the herdsmen drove their cows into people’s farms. Food securi­ty also includes the distribution, where the goods are moved from one point to another, you have se­curity agents on the road exploit­ing money from them and before they get to their destinations, the prices have gone extremely high.

“The so-called palliatives of the government don’t get to the right people. A few days ago we read that the Central Bank of Ni­geria (CBN) gave N100 billion to the Ministry of Agriculture. Has that money reached the farmers?

“Government should sub­sidise fertilisers. There was a time when the government had storage tanks across the north and also silos, they’ll release the grains to the common people at cheap prices. Local government areas in states that are into farm­ing should have tractors that they can rent during farming season at cheap prices.”

Speaking on insecurity, he said, “Insecurity is not an issue that the government can’t han­dle. Where do the herders come from that they’ll match their cows into people’s farms to eat up their crops?

“Security agents can go around the country, and it won’t take the government more than a day to take away the guns from the herders. They should take away their guns and not doing so will make people believe that they’re sponsored by some gov­ernment officials,” Dogo said.

Comrade Isah Abubakar, Na­tional President, NYCN, told Dai­ly Independent that to achieve food security, the government must ensure that interventions get to the farmers and not the other way round.

“When you talk about food se­curity in Nigeria, we’re deceiving ourselves. We have vendors that are not really farmers who benefit from the Federal Government in­terventions as far as agriculture is concerned. How do you talk about food security without engaging the real farmers? They engage friends and family members in the name of empowering them with agricultural interventions, leaving out the real farmers. They should work with those in agriculture and not those using agriculture as an avenue to get empowered.

“In the early 90s’ every local government in Nigeria had trac­tors. The tractors were provided so that the locals could hire them to farm during farming season. What has happened to that inter­vention scheme?

He added, “On the issue of insecurity which is affecting the major region producing food in Nigeria, which is the north. How far has the government gone in tackling insecurity so that farm­ers can return to farm? The reali­ty on ground shows that we’re not ready for food security.

“Government should allow the importation of food. We should open our borders for food importation. A lot of Nigerians can no longer feed themselves. Government must find an alter­native means to feed Nigerians. Interventions shouldn’t go to government friends who are not farmers”, Abubakar said.