Nigeria: tomato processing faces uncertain future

According to a report by Bloomberg on 15 September, the Dangote tomato processing factory in Kano shut down again. The Bloomberg report stated that farmers engaged to supply the factory with raw materials abandoned tomato farming at the start of the rainy season in May because of low yields. Also, the onset of rainy season disrupted operations, so they chose to plant other crops.

Aliko Dangote inaugurated the company in March 2016 with the clear goal of supplanting imports of tomato paste, mostly from China, estimated at 400 000 tonnes annually. Located in Kadawa, on the outskirts of the northern city of Kano, Nigeria’s biggest tomato plant already faced lack of materials and price disputes between the company and farmers in late 2017, which led to its shutdown.

The factory resumed operations in March 2019 after being idle for three years. It has since taken moves to solve issues that forced its earlier shutdown, one of which was to develop its own farming program within the district, with a special tomato train and the provision of assistance for farmers, including seedlings to improve the supply of raw materials.
In September, Kaita explained that “the Dangote factory has set up a high-tech greenhouse to grow 150 million seedlings of hybrid tomatoes, which can give farmers up to 70 metric tonnes per hectare, as against the [current] 10 metric tonnes per hectare. This will ensure that in the coming tomato season, a minimum of 400 000 metric tonnes of tomato can be produced by Dangote growers alone. This will definitely have a huge impact on national self-sufficiency, in both fresh tomato and tomato paste.”

 But on 19 November, local press sources revealed that tomato farmers in Kano have expressed their fear and dissatisfaction over the suspension of the distribution of hybrid tomato seedlings by Dangote Farms. The Chairman of the Kano State branch of the National Tomato Growers, Processors, and Marketers Association of Nigeria said that only about 500 of the 10 000 registered tomato farmers were able to collect the seedlings before the distribution was suddenly suspended.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Dangote Farms, Abdulkareem Kaita has assured that the distribution of the seedlings would soon resume as the CBN had already taken delivery of the materials and components used in mixing the tomato seeds before producing its seedlings. Mr. Kaita also announced that the distribution period has been extended to the end of January 2020 instead of December 2019.

Olam begins pilot tomato farming
Only one week after the announcement of the suspension of the seedling distribution, Olam Nigeria Limited announced it has decided to launch commercial tomato production, with a pilot farming program presently being carried out in Kano and Jigawa states. Olam is a food and agri-business company, mostly operating in the sectors of cashew, sesame, cotton, cocoa and rice production, but its Vice-president for Farming Initiatives, Mr. Reji George, said the company is now going into tomato farming. He stated that already more than 100 farmers have been engaged as out-growers to farm the produce for the company, beginning from this tomato season.

However, Mr. George said the farming was still at the test stage, in order to monitor the viability of the new initiative. He said that at the end of the harvest, the company would buy the produce from the growers, check the quantity and the quality and determine which areas need to be improved before going into full cultivation.

Asked if there is a plan to establish a tomato processing plant in the future, Mr. George simply said, “Everything is still at a pilot stage, please.”

Sources: bloomberg.com, nairametrics.com, punchng.com, pulse.ng, guardian.ng, francetvinfo.fr, dailytrust.com.ng