Tomato remains one of the easiest, gainful crops to cultivate in all zones—Dangote
Vice President of Dangote Industries Limited, Alhaji Sani Dangote has revealed that tomatoes remained one of the easiest crops to cultivate in all the geopolitical zones as the nation was blessed with arable land suitable for crop cultivation.
In an interview, he hailed the federal government’s new policy aimed at reducing the N52 billion spent on the annual importation of 150, 000 metric tons of tomato concentrate through the neighboring countries into Nigeria.
The new policy was aimed at promoting local production of fresh tomato fruit required for fresh consumption and processing, increase local production of tomato concentrate and reduce post-harvest losses. The policy is expected to create at least 60,000 additional jobs in fresh fruits production and processing.
The policy restricts the importation of tomato concentrates to the seaports to address the abuse of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS), stops the importation of tomatoes preserved otherwise by vinegar or acetic acid; and increases the tariff on tomato concentrate to 50 per cent with an additional levy of $1,500 per metric ton.
While stressing that Nigeria has enough arable land to cultivate and meet local demand for tomatoes, he stressed that prior to the new policy, farmers lose about 50 percent of their tomato harvest as there were no enough processing plants to buy the fresh produce and turn them into concentrate.
Dangote added that the heavy losses discouraged the farmers from cultivating more tomatoes this year, but was quick to note that the new policy will encourage farmers to cultivate more tomatoes, earn more money as they sell to processing plants.
He emphasized that Nigeria given her resources and abundant arable land, has no business importing tomato concentrate.
According to him, “We are working for production of more tomatoes through an out-growers scheme, but this will not feasible if there are no processing plants to take the excess products off the hands of the farmers. This policy is for every stakeholder. The Vice President visited our farms and plants to see things for him and he was very impressed. Government stance and policy should be commended.”
Business Hilights recalls that Nigeria imports an average of 150,000 metric tons of tomato concentrate per annum valued at $170 million mostly due to inadequacy in capacity to produce tomato concentrate. Current demand for fresh tomato fruits is estimated at about 2.45 million metric tons per annum while the country produces only about 1.8million Metric tonnes per annum.
