Tomato farmers lose N2bn to poor storage facilities amid bumper harvest

Tomato farmers have lost over N2 billion since the beginning of the ongoing tomato glut in 2024 owing to poor storage facilities.

Inadequate availability of storage facilities in tomato-growing regions, particularly in the North, has proved to be a driver of this loss for both farmers and investors.

Tomato farmers revealed that the harvest of the last planting season led to a tomato glut—which occurs annually from January to March—an excess of tomatoes that often leads to a fall in price.

However, what should serve as an opportunity to bounce back financially from the loss made by Tuta Absoluta outbreak last year seems to be another disaster yet again for over 200 tomato farmers in Nigeria.

Read also: Here are four ways you can preserve tomatoes

“Our farmers have lost more than N2 billion to the situation. We are making losses on our investments. The money we put in is not what we are getting back,” lamented Sani Danladi, national secretary of the Association of Tomato Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria.

For Danladi and other tomato farmers in the country, the tomato glut should be a time for them to cash out and smile to the banks, but insufficient storage facilities are killing this dream.

“In Kano and Kaduna, more than 500 tons of tomatoes are harvested every day. The number is even more than what I just mentioned,” he explained.

“Also, more than 20 trucks leave these two states every day with about 25 metric tons of tomatoes. Now, do the math and calculate how much we are losing,” Danladi told BusinessDay in a phone interview Tuesday.

He added, “And because we do not have sufficient processing facilities that can turn raw tomatoes to different forms, we are suffering huge post-harvest loss.”

Post-harvest loss is a major production drainer in Africa’s biggest nation today. Nigeria loses an average of N3.5 trillion annually to post-harvest loss, according to industry experts. This huge monetary loss calls for urgent national intervention.

According to a report by the professional service company PwC, Africa’s most populous black nation loses 45 percent of tomatoes annually to post-harvest loss.

As of 2016, data showed that tomatoes accounted for about 60 percent of the global vegetable production of 177 million tonnes, reflecting a market gap that Nigeria could tap into.

With provisions of storage facilities, Nigeria, already the second producer of tomatoes in Africa with 2.3 million metric tons annually, can grow to become the leading producer in the African continent, exporting to other nations.

Tasiu Haruna, secretary of the Association of Tomato Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria (Kano Chapter), said many farmers are not well trained on storage processes.

According to him, this gap in training education is also driving this huge post-harvest loss.

Rabiu Zuntu, chairman of the Tomato Growers and Processors Association of Nigeria, in an earlier interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, said approximately 50 percent of harvested tomatoes are lost during the period of tomato glut due to inadequate storage facilities and limited processing capabilities.

Read also: Tomato prices decline 90% in Lagos, others on bumper harvest

The glut has crashed tomato prices by 90 percent across many states to N15,000 for a big basket against record highs of N150,000 in May 2024 — which led to Nigerians turning to different substitutes.

Further findings by BusinessDay reveal that it costs even less in the North. In Kaduna, a big crate of tomatoes is sold for an average of N5,000, falling by nearly 200 percent compared to last year.

Like tomato farmers, other staples across the agricultural value chain also recorded bumper harvests, but without adequate storage facilities, these excesses will be lost to post-harvest challenges.