In January this year, Dutsen Wai, a town in Kubo Local Government Area, Kaduna State, located along the Zaria-Jos Road, was in the news for witnessing the first shipment of refrigerated tomatoes to Lagos State.
Daily Trust visited the town to see if the shipment had continued but discovered that the GEM4 programme, which was largely involved in the project, had ended.
GEMS4, which is Growth & Employment in States, is a project in Nigeria which is funded by the World Bank and the UK’s Department for International Development, and was implemented by the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment.
Vice Chairman of Tomato Farmers Association (TFA), Alhaji MaiKudi Ibrahim, told Daily Trust that there was indeed shipment of refrigerated tomatoes from Dutsen Wai to Ibadan and Ilorin which they organised, but admitted that some marketers loaded to Agege, in Lagos.
However, some marketers said they pulled their resources together to get the refrigerated van because there was scarcity of trucks to move their products to the other end of the market.
Some of the farmers and marketers told Daily Trust that GEMS4 and other business individuals who traded in tomatoes used the refrigerated van or what they called “AC Van.”
Golden Harvest also gathered that a new market was billed to be opened in the area that would load between 40 to 50 trucks of tomatoes daily for about 40 days to two months.
Sarkin Kasuwar Dutsen Wai (Head of the Market in Dutsen Wai), Rayyinu Adamu, however, stated that most of those using the AC vans were those supplying hotels in Lagos.
Adamu stressed that most of the farmers and marketers were not comfortable with the AC vans because if the system became faulty, it could damage the tomatoes within one to two hours.
He pointed out that the farmers harvested large quantity of tomatoes but that transportation was a major challenge.
The area also lacks irrigation facilities but the farmers are hopeful that the completion of the Galma Dam in Zaria, which is a bit far from the communities, would provide some respite for them.
Alhaji Yusuf Alhassan, one TFA’s officials, wants more government presence in attracting private sector investment since the area had huge potentials for vegetables, or at least get companies that would actively be involved in strengthening the transportation system.
Another farmer, Audi Maisa’a, noted that many NGOs and development agencies came to the area with promises of hope, but that as soon as they left, no action followed – which made him feel they used them to showcase to their financiers.
Alhaji Yakubu Adamu, the Tafidan Dutsen Wai, also wants government to expedite action on the Galma Dam and put in place irrigation facilities that would scale up irrigation activities, adding that tomato cultivation in the area had become seasonal – from October to December, because they did not have access to water for irrigation.
