Kano - Thousands of farmers in northern Nigeria
contracted to grow tomatoes for a set price are shunning the crop this season
after pests destroyed much of last year’s produce, leaving the processing
factory set up by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s
richest man, short of raw materials.
Established to process 1 200 metric tons of tomatoes each
day and produce 400 000 tons of paste annually, the Dangote Farms factory, just
outside the northern city of Kano, was designed to meet Nigeria’s domestic
needs and help cut paste imports of 300 000 tons a year from China.
It was expected to help put to better use the 900 000 tons
of tomatoes that rot as waste annually out of Nigeria’s yearly harvest of about
1.5 million tons. About 8 000 farmers in the Kadawa Valley, near Kano, signed
to supply the factory, were guaranteed a price of about $700 per ton compared
with an average of less than $350 in the domestic market, according to
estimates by the central bank.
They’re now wary of planting after the invasion of tomato
leaf-miner pests last year ruined more than a third of Nigeria’s
tomato harvest, according to Abdulkareem Kaita, the manager of Dangote Farms.
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“We don’t have enough supply,” Kaita said in a May 15
interview in his office, explaining why the factory had to shut. “We are hoping
to reopen when we get the supplies that meet our demand.” Closing of the
factory, developed after a study by the central bank, is a setback for Nigeria’s plans
to revive its agricultural industry, boost employment in the less developed
north of the country and cut the national import bill.
It also shows how the grub, also known as tuta absoluta, is
devastating African tomato crops since arriving from South America through Spain in 2008.
It has spread as far south as South
Africa.
Mixed Cropping
The factory started operations in March last year, producing
at full capacity, before closing a month later as the crop losses took their
toll. Since then it has operated in fits and starts, working last between February
and March, said Kaita.
Across the country the price of tomatoes has jumped, rising
as much as threefold in some parts, on the impact of the pest described locally
as the “tomato ebola,” according to a survey of buyers. Nigeria registered a 17.2 percent
inflation rate in April from the previous year, with food prices appreciating
19.3 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.
The National Horticultural Research Institute in Kano is urging farmers to
protect their tomato crop by using lamps at night to attract the pests to
water-filled trays.
“A lot of farmers producing tomatoes every year ran away
from the crop this season,” Abubakar Hamishu, a research officer at the
institute said in an interview. The organization is promoting this method of
pest control, “which is affordable, to help the farmers,” he said.
Musa Alasan, who grew tomatoes on his 7-acre [2.8-hectare]
farm, allocated only one acre for the crop this year while planting wheat on
the rest.
“I lost almost everything, so I was really afraid to plant
tomatoes again,” he said by phone from his farm in Samawa, near Kano. “I know a lot of
our friends who used to grow tomatoes but this year they didn’t, while others
who did mix it with other crops.”
BLOOMBERG