A BASKET OF TOMATOES SELLS FOR N31,000: A DIALOGUE WITH MY SISTERS!
A BASKET OF TOMATOES SELLS FOR N31,000: A DIALOGUE WITH MY SISTERS!
BY:
Nurudeen Dauda
May 18, 2016.
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
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In my observation, Nigerians are “exploiting” their fellow Nigerians in what some people “euphemistically” called “taking advantage of the situation” . In my humble opinion, something “fundamentally” wrong is with us all, including this writer.
The bulk of “fresh tomatoes” that we use in Nigeria today is locally produced; the government does not produce tomatoes neither sales tomatoes. However, Nigeria spends about N11bn annually for the importation of “tomatoes paste” from China, and India etc., while over 1,000,000 metric tones of our locally produce tomatoes rots away annually with our farmers making huge loses.
At least, for every situation no matter how “bad” it is, it may likely have some positives. With the increase in the price of a “basket” of tomatoes to N31,000 in northern Nigeria in the south part of the country it will probably sell for on the average N60,000 a basket. However, if that happens it will send a massage to those “southerners” that are calling “northerners” parasites to realize that it is a “stark ignorance” to call somebody who feeds you a parasite. After all, both northerners and southerners need one another!
In Nigeria today even the seller of Gwari (Gbagi) “Rice” who takes advantage of the situation will try to use the “DOLLAR” or Forex crisis to justify his or her increase in price. One wonders how the dollar or forex crisis affects “Gwari Rice” or local tomatoes. Although, some might argue on the issue of increase in” demand” for local goods. I insist that there is something “fundamentally” wrong with us!
Those who know “tomatoes” business very will confirm that routinely the moment it starts “raining” tomatoes becomes “scarce” and very “expensive”, but however, this years’ “unimaginable” “hike” is attributed to the following factors: (1) a disease which affects tomatoes production,(2) taking advantage of situation by the farmers,(3) the lingering fuel scarcity which led to a subsequent fuel price increase.
It is apt to state that what our founding fathers bequeathed to us is agriculture not oil but our successive leaders abandoned our heritage for “Petro-dollar” and now that the “Chickens have indeed come home to roost”only the wise turns to agriculture. For us to get it right, Governments at both state and federal levels need to come up with “policies” that will attract “young graduate” into agricultural business.
An associate professor of Economics from the University of Abuja, Nazifi Abdullahi Darma once said that in a research conducted it was found that majority of our farmers are above “50 years” and at the same time “young” people are not attracted to farming which means if care is not taken in the next ten (10) years all our farmers would have become old or died as such there might be food crisis in the country.
The best thing to do in order to develop our economy is through our heritage which is agriculture. We have the local market for consumption. Let's embrace our heritage.
May God save us!