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Located in Kadawa, a suburb of Kano City, in the north of the country, Africa's largest tomato plant was inaugurated in March 2016. It faced a lack of materials and a price conflict between society and farmers at the end of 2017, which led to its closure.
In a Bloomberg report, the plant resumed production last week with a production capacity of 1,200 metric tons of tomato paste per day.
Abdulkareem Kaita, managing director of Dangote Farms Ltd., said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the plant can process about 100 tonnes of tomato paste a day and will increase production as tomato supplies grow.
"Our main challenge is the scarcity of tomatoes that would be sufficient for our daily production.
"Local tomato growers could not meet our demand for production; Neither could we agree with farmers on the price of tomatoes per basket, "Kaita told Bloomberg.
Dangote tomato processing plant in Kano (businesshilights)
Dangote will develop his own farm with a special tomato strain
To solve the problems that had forced his previous stoppage, Dangote will set up his own farm in the factory district with a special train for tomato and help the farmers with sowing. This will help the factory to meet the production demand.
According to the report, the company also announced that it has reached an agreement with farmers to buy tomatoes at local market prices.
Nigeria will ban the import of tomato paste this year
Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development
Last month, the Nigerian government had announced the ban on importing tomato paste by the end of 2019.
Audu OgbehThe Minister of Agriculture of Nigeria said this at a meeting with local farmers in Kano. He said the goal was to encourage the mbadive production of tomatoes.
Although one of the largest tomato producers in the world with millions of tomato producers across the country, Nigeria imports an average of 150,000 metric tons of tomato puree from China and other parts of the world. .
If this works, it will bring considerable relief to Nigeria and help President Muhammadu Buhari's diversification policy to create jobs and develop the non-oil sector of the economy.
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