Not less than 189 metric tonnes of tomatoes imported into Nigeria for the past 12 months

According to an expert. Mr Duro Kuteyi, food manufacturer at Betamark Consulting, made the disclosure on Friday saying that Nigeria had have not less than 189 metric tonnes of tomatoes in the last 12 months.


    These were his words "“in spite of being identified as the 14th largest producer of tomatoes, it is sad to note that Nigeria imports various processed tomato products for the consumption of its nationals.

“The imported tomato products include, canned tomato paste, tomato ketchup and various sauces, canned tomato fruit, etc.
“Between 2015 and 2016, a total of 189,510.11 metric tons of tomato paste was imported into Nigeria.

“This is equivalent to 1,042,305.68 metric tons of fresh tomatoes.

“A lot of the tomatoes grown in Nigeria suffer post harvest losses incurred from transporting harvest from the farms in the northern part of the country where they are grown, to the southern markets where they are consumed.

“These no doubt prevent sizeable proportion of the harvested tomatoes from getting to the consumer and end in garbage heaps nation-wide.

“However, post-harvest losses can be minimized or completely eliminated if food processing techniques are put to practice.”