Lack of proper and modern storage facilities have ravaged tomato produces in Nigeria, leading to 60% post-harvest losses.
Currently, Nigeria is sitting as the 13th largest producer of tomatoes in the world.
Also, the second largest in Africa, with 2.2 mill metric tonnes, behind Egypt, the leading producer of tomatoes in Africa with about 7.9 mill metric tonnes.
Nigeria’s average yield per hectare for the tomato crop, which is 4.2MT, is the lowest when compared with Kenya (23.7MT), South Africa (70.8MT), Ethiopia (6.2MT) and Egypt (41.6MT).
Tomato demand in Nigeria is pegged at 2.2 million MT per annum, leaving a deficit of 1.4 million MT. According to official data from the agricultural ministry, post-harvest losses record about 0.7 mill metric tonnes of tomatoes.
The nation’s inability to meet local demand is primarily due to poor storage facilities, leading to scarcity of tomatoes and high cost of purchase.
Investigation carried out by NewsBeatng revealed that massive losses are also recorded at the transportation point from the Northern region (tomato-producing states) to the South (marketplace), steadily increasing logistics costs due to the PMS subsidy removal.
It was gathered that believe that poor storage facility cuts the entire agricultural value chain, not just tomato. Most available greenhouse facilities are either abandoned, archaic or underutilised.
Building proper storage facilities or greenhouse systems to curtail post-harvest losses should not be rocket science for Africa’s biggest economy.
Analysts would expect to see interventions and funding from both the Federal and State Governments diverted towards building durable storage facilities across the country.
Market Analysts expect measures like building a small modular processing plant close to tomato growing farms to crush fresh tomatoes and pepper into pastes to reduce our importation of pastes.
They believe the country can scale production and meet local demand with a practical and functional storage system.
