Price of Tomato Sets to Seriously Crash as Farmers Give Update
Of all foodstuffs expected to have high prices, tomato and peppers are the least. They are so affordable that Nigerians hardly bother themselves about the commodities. However, tomato, and other spices, have become “gold” in several households across the country.
The good news now is that the price is set to seriously crash as revealed by the Tomatos Producers Association of Nigerian president, Oyeleke Bola.
The president, while sharing the good news, said that the farmers faced a number of challenges this year because of the rain which generated heat from the ground.
He said, “Small-scale farmers and the association had a lot of challenges in 2024. First of all, the climate is not favourable to us because the rain came late, and the first rain generated serious heat from the ground, which destroyed almost one hectare of land that tomato was cultivated in Kano State, and other parts of the country.”
In some cities across Nigeria, three balls of tomato sell for N500 depending on the market. The president also discussed the challenge of pest and disease.
“As we were trying to address this challenge there was an outbreak of tomato ebola, also called tuta absoluta, and it caused a serious damaging impact on our tomatoes, and it was really serious that adversely affected our investments on tomatoes, which made it difficult for farmers to cope with.
“However, now we have tomato harvest in Plateau State, which can go around a little, at least to crash the prices of tomatoes in the market. Again we are trying to have a good land preparation before we start the wet season farming, however, planting this year too is late but we are trying to see what we can do because small-scale farms made a lot of losses during the dry season farming.
“Another challenge is the high cost of transportation, and this is really affecting the current tomato price in the market but with the coming in with the new harvest into major cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and others at least by the middle of July the high price of tomato will go down a little.”
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