Tomato prices drop 58% in Lagos

Prices of tomatoes have dropped by 58 percent in Lagos for the first time this year, bringing respite to households and reducing pressure on them.

BusinessDay surveyed markets across Lagos and found that a big basket of tomatoes currently sells for N50,000 as against an average of N120,000 some months ago in Mile 12 Market. A small basket of tomatoes now costs N6,500 against N13,000 in the period under review.

“When the rains begin to subside, prices of tomatoes will decline.

Tomatoes do not do well during the rainy season,” Sani Danladi, national chairman of the Association of Tomato Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria, said in an earlier interview.

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For pepper, a small basket of habanero pepper currently sells for an average of N13,000 as against N35,000 at the peak of the price surge in May-June, indicating a 68 percent decline in the period.

The July/August rain break has allowed for the proper germination of tomatoes in the north, its major growing region, farmers say.

Also, efforts by the federal government to tackle the pest invasion of Tuta absoluta on tomato farms have helped in taming the prices of the vegetables.

At the peak of the rainy season which led to the unprecedented price increase of the vegetables, Nigerians alternated with beets, cucumbers and carrots for their stews.

Even the popular jollof rice was affected. An SB Morgan Jollof Rice Index revealed that the average cost of cooking a pot of jollof rice increased by 19.6 percent from N16,955 to N20,274, between March and June 2024.

Attesting to the decline, a roadside tomato trader told BusinessDay: “I bought a small basket of tomatoes for N6,500 yesterday. Something I was buying for N13,000 before.”

However, while farmers pin the decline on the rain break, Bismarck Rewane, an economist and the executive director of Financial Derivatives, confirming the slash in tomato price, said in an interview on Channels Television on Thursday, that the ongoing hunger protest is responsible.

Rewane noted that the vegetables are sold out at perishable value.

According to him, the prices of tomatoes and pepper may increase again as business activities return to normalcy in Nigerian markets after the protests.

Read also: Prices of beans, tomatoes, potatoes surge most in June

But Danladi (earlier mentioned), assured that a pause in rainfall is driving the price crash experienced across markets. He said prices of tomatoes and pepper will decline further during the dry season.

BusinessDay had earlier reported that the tomato price rally was spurred by seasonality, Tuta absoluta invasion and the high cost of transportation from growing states in the north to other parts of the country.

In Africa, Nigeria is the largest grower of tomatoes, still, approximately 700,000 tons rot as waste each year owing to post-harvest loss, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Added to post-harvest loss, is the constant invasion by Tuta absoluta, popularly called Tomato Ebola that ravages tomato farms every year in the north, resulting in putting production at a low level.