Agric ministry fails to act as ‘Tomato Ebola’ claims 720,000mt

The inability of the Ministry of Agriculture and Research Institutes to find a lasting solution to the ‘Tuta Absoluta’ disease has resulted to the recent hike in the price of fresh tomato produce across the country and destroyed an estimated 40 percent of anticipated harvest of farmers’ output.

Nigeria produces 1.8 million tons annually, according to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD); meaning output lost from the disease is equivalent to 720,000 metric tons (MT).

The lost output has created scarcity of fresh tomato, making prices to increase by more than 135 percent.

“The outbreak is recent but the pest has been in existence. For now, there is no technology developed to overcome tuta damage but we can breed for resistance to the pest attack,” said Chikaleke Victor, principal research officer, Agronomy/Plant breeding, National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT).

The current unbelievably high price of tomatoes across the country clearly shows that the Ministry of Agriculture has failed to address the problem of the virus and avert a recurrence.

Tuta Absoluta is a moth that has a reputation for swiftly ravaging tomato cultivation in a little above 48 hours – prompting farmers to nickname it ‘Tomato Ebola’.

The disease has led to the shutting down of tomato processing plant factories by major paste producers, putting pressure on the country’s currency as traders are forced to import the fresh produce from neighbouring West African countries as well as importing more tomato paste into the country.

“At the current price of tomato in the market, it is no more economical for us to produce tomato paste in our factory,” Sanni Dangote, president, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG) and vice president, Dangote Industries Limited, said in an interview with BusinessDay.      

“Chinese companies that process tomato concentrates have slashed their prices by 50 percent to attract Nigeria importers,” he said.

BusinessDay investigation of various markets in Lagos shows the market has been flooded with a lot of tomato paste mainly from China.

“There are new brands of paste in the market since the price of fresh tomato increased drastically,” said Doyin Ademola, a provision seller in Mile 12 market.

Most of the tomato farms in Kano, Jigawa, Plateau, Katsina and Kaduna states were affected by the pest, which killed all the tomato species there, BusinessDay investigations show.

Lawal Biliya Adam, secretary, tomato section of the perishable goods segment of Mile 12 Market in Lagos, said, “About 70 percent of the tomatoes we are consuming today in Nigeria is from Cameroon and this is the first time we are experiencing anything like this.”

“We experienced the disease last year and the agric ministry did nothing about it and now we are experiencing it. We are yet to see anything or anyone from the ministry of agric or the extension agents,” said Adam, who also farms seven hectares of tomato in Kano.

The country has almost 180 million population and tomato serves as staple food for a majority of this number.

Nigeria is the 13th largest producer of tomato in the world and the second after Egypt in Africa, yet the country is still unable to meet local demand because about 50 percent of tomato produce is wasted due to lack of storage facility, poor handling practice, and poor transportation network across the country.

In addressing the current tuta issues, experts have called on the government to look at ways to best integrate pest management strategy amongst farmers to ameliorate the damage of the pest.

They see greenhouse farming as the solution to pest and disease control for now, since the research institutes are yet to come up with technology to address the problem.

Popoola Akinola a doctor of crop protection at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, said “Greenhouse farming is the solution to ‘tuta absoluta’ disease in the country because it provides opportunity for farmers to farm within a confined arrangement.”

According to Akinola, green house is essentially a controlled environment, which helps to limit the devastating effects of insect pests and diseases that ravage vegetables, including tomatoes.

“At FUNAAB, we came up with a technology that has addressed the issues of wilt disease in tomato plant. We were able to develop tomato plants that are resistant to the wilt disease,” he said.

The deputy director of Horticulture, Federal Ministry of Agriculture refuse to comment on questions about tuta absoluta by BusinessDay.

JOSEPHINE OKOJIE