TOMATO: Nigerian Governor declares state of emergency on tomatoes

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Following the invasion of a tomato pest trending in Nigeria, Governor El-Rufai has declared state of emergency on tomatoes in Kaduna State.
He said about 200 farmers in only three local government areas in the state lost one billion Naira in the last one month.

Speaking at a Press Conference through the Commissioner for Agriculture in Kaduna, he said that some officials of the ministry had already been sent to Kenya to liaise with experts and return with the best way of fixing the situation.

He said: “I want to say that Governor Nasir El-Rufai has declared a state-of-emergency on tomatoes in the state. This is as a result of invasion of the crops by a pest named tomato blight, botanically known as Tuta Absoluta.

The governor said that 80% of tomato farms have been ravaged by an exotic pest, called tomato blight (Tuta Absoluta).

In his words:“In the past one month, 12 local government areas of the state that produce tomatoes have lost 80 per cent of its tomatoes harvest. In three local government areas, about 200 farmers have lost one billion naira worth of their tomatoes. So you can imagine the magnitude of the lose."


“It is so severe that even Dangote who established a tomato processing plant in Kano, had to shut down production.

“The problem with the disease which is caused by a moth, is that no amount of spraying will kill the adult. You spray it, after about three hours, it revives back to life. So, we have sent some of our officials to travel to Kenya and meet our partners. Kenya has a good advantage on this issue over us.

“We understand that they use a plant extract to take care of this problem. But we do not have that knowledge yet. We expect them to return very soon with a short and medium term solution,” he explained.

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