Emmanuel Ijewere, Vice President, Nigeria Agro-business Group, has said that northern Nigeria produces 98% of the tomatoes consumed annually in the country.
Mr Iwejere, who stated this at the National Tomato Stakeholders Summit, NTSS, Kano 2019, held at the government house on Thursday, said of the 12 states, Kano is the largest producer of the commodity.
According to him, the achievement in massive production of the commodity had brought high rate of employment opportunities to the youth in the states.
Mr Iwejere, who is the coordinator of the summit, also said that the aim of the forum was to strengthen opportunities in tomato value-chain and identify some challenges bedevilling its production and proffer solutions in order to achieve national self-sufficiency.
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Earlier in his remarks, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, call for strong measures to strengthen the value-chain.
According to him, production of tomato is an all-encompassing process in order to achieve value chain.
“You can’t produce tomato seed without thinking on how to produce it. You can’t produce tomato without thinking on how to preserve it. You can’t preserve tomato without thinking on how to market it.
“Bagauda has the largest tomato belt but the farmers there lose about 50-60% of the produce due to lack of plan to preserve it. You see, a lot needs to be done to achieve the value chain,” he said.
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On his part, the Country Director of TechnoServe, which is one of the partners that organised the summit, Larry Umunung, noted that the summit was imperative and timely in view of the loses recorded in tomato production in Nigeria.
According to him, Nigeria loses about 45% of tomatoes produced annually, noting that, “this summit will help in sensitising stakeholders to device means of achieving effective and profitable production.”
