‘Greenhouse technology will help control pest, diseases’

I never had any background in farming. I studied microbiology in the university and after my service year, I got a job with a bank. But at a point in my career, I just thought to myself that I actually wanted to do something different. So, I decided to go for an MBA and I applied for an MBA at the Lagos Business School (LBS).

At that point in time there was crisis in the banking industry and the last place I worked, there was a lot of pressure because of the crisis and I decided to just resign. Anytime I am driving with my wife, probably coming from church, we would stop on the way to buy tomatoes and I will see, for instance, a whole bowl of tomatoes, maybe sometimes, N500 when there is a glut and on another particular day, the same bowl of tomatoes goes for N1,200 when tomato is scare.

So, I thought to myself, why can’t I venture into this? That is, find a way to preserve tomatoes and then sell at a time when it’s very expensive. It was more of a business opportunity than about an agricultural one. So I decided to start researching and went on the internet and I couldn’t find any technology that could keep fresh tomato for that long. I realised that the problem with supply was that they couldn’t actually grow in a period during the year and there is a technology that can actually help you grow throughout the year. And if we had that technology, during the period when everything is expensive, we can supply.

 So, I actually discovered there is something called greenhouse and I started doing research on it. I saw the opportunity and did further and more active/intensive research and discovered that there were one or two greenhouse farms around and I went to see them. Later, I started contacting people abroad. I had to go to Spain and Israel and when I saw the opportunity, I decided to venture into it.

Why the choice of this location? It’s obvious that the North is fantastic for tomatoes just the same way that cocoa will grow very well in the South West. But there’s also got to be nearness to market because part of the problem of tomato wastage or spoilage is infrastructural issues.

Greenhouse farming is very simple. It is just basically trying to grow crops in a controlled environment. What level of control? It’s as simple as just covering to a level of sophistication in which everything is controlled. There are low technology greenhouses and there are high technology greenhouses.

In greenhouses, everything up to the CO2 is provided for the crops. You put the amount of light that is like real sunlight that they need as there is an ideal temperature to grow each crop. There is an optimal temperature for night and there is an optimal temperature for day. Just to control everything and it could be as simple as just covering the plants with nylon and local wood. It could be that crude depending on what you want to achieve. Depending on the funding available and depending on the environment. The more difficult the environment, the more technology you require.

The benefits are numerous really. The ideal night temperature for tomatoes is about 15 to 18 0C and for the day time, the ideal temperature is about 21 to 24 0C. You can’t get that ideal temperature in a place like the South or even in a place like Holland. What Holland has been able to do is that things that you will never be able to grow because the environmental condition is not suitable, you will be able to grow them through greenhouse technology.

Some people are growing open fields naturally, and you are growing them under greenhouses but you are producing the same product in the market. Of course, your quality increases. But not every product you grow under greenhouses that will give you an advantage of enhanced value over the open field. But there are certain crops that have been tried and tested over time and most of these are the horticultural crops and such as the tomatoes, the pepper, the flowers amongst others.

Another major advantage is that it works better with the control of pests and diseases because most greenhouses are covered with net, glass and other materials. For instance, you have your home and mosquitoes will not enter because you have nets or it will reduce the number of mosquitoes that will enter. So that’s a major advantage of the greenhouse environment.

So, what I will produce using 1 hectare of land under greenhouse, some other farmers will be using about 20 to 40 hectares of land to produce similar output. Greenhouse helps you grow certain crops under very harsh environmental conditions whether extremely cold or extremely hot; and also helps you manage crops better.

Definitely you are in a better position to control pests when you use greenhouses. There’s no doubt about it. So, I’m a greenhouse player doesn’t mean I will still not be affected. As I said, the mere fact that you have mosquito net in your house doesn’t mean that the mosquitoes will not enter, especially if you open your door. But when you spray insecticide, it is easier for you to control it better. So, definitely greenhouse is a technology that can really help with this.

In the North for instance, most of the production comes from the open field. With the outbreak of Tuta, greenhouses have been attacked too so we have to be proactive as well. Tuta is a very vicious pest and it is not easily controlled. It mutates very fast and because of that it develops very high resistance to pesticides easily. It can mutate into several generations in a single year. Even for a place like the North, it does not have to be very sophisticated. It might just be a mesh house or netting the entire farm. It will prevent pests from entering and even if they enter, when you are able to use other pest control methods like pesticides, at least it will prevent new ones from coming in. That is the best you can do.

Definitely, it’s an option but you still have to use open field. Greenhouses are expensive and it takes time to build and even in the most sophisticated economies of the world, they still use the open field too. At times, there is an environment that is ideal that that extra cost by investing in greenhouses doesn’t make much significant difference; you might just decide to use net instead. So it’s an option. If you have more greenhouses and proactive management of the greenhouses, you will be in a better position definitely, to manage pests including Tuta, naturally.

Anywhere in the world, greenhouses are expensive. It’s just that things are more expensive in Nigeria naturally because they are not manufactured here so when you add 25 percent duty.

 With greenhouse, can you speed the timeline from planting to harvest?

No. You can only regulate the temperature and nutrients of the tomato to boost the yield or output. Tomato does about 2 months, about 12 to 13 weeks before harvest. There are about 2 types of tomatoes. There’s the determinate and the indeterminate. The common one in the North and the one used for the open field is usually called the determinate. They grow for about 3 months and after about 3 or 4 weeks of harvest, it dies. There is usually the one that you can harvest for up to a year or even more unless diseases attack it, which usually happens in this part of the world anyway. Those ones are vine tomatoes. They are usually the ones we grow in greenhouses. Outside, the greenhouses, it can be more difficult because you have to get poles for each of them. It can be grown on open fields if you can support it. The more you prune it, the more productive it is or the more it gives more fruit.

Generally, small farmers cannot move agriculture forward in Nigeria and that is just the reality.