A day in Kebbi Tomato Farm

By Olusegun Adeniyi

Armed with a ventilated plastic crate, each of the 600 young men and women (all wearing hijab uniforms) competed furiously penultimate Friday afternoon at the GBFoods in Ngaski, Kebbi State.

As they harvested tomatoes and I watched the workers (each of whom would be paid according to the number of crates they filled by the end of the day), I could see the opportunities for empowerment through agriculture that we have failed to harness in Nigeria. But first, what took me to the farm that also has a tomato paste factory?

On my way from China last October through Qatar Airlines, I met a young man at the airport in Doha who introduced himself to me as Tokunbo Aderibigbe, a media/communication manager for GBFoods.

After the usual exchanges, Tokunbo said he would like me to see what they are doing with tomatoes at their agro-processing farm in Kebbi State.

While I agreed to the idea, I said that for security reasons, my visit would have to coincide with whenever a government delegation visited the farm.

So, when Tokunbo informed me two weeks ago that the Minister of State for Trade and Investment, John Enoh, was visiting their farm in Kebbi, I signed on to the trip. And I was impressed with what I saw.

Spanning 1,500 hectares, the farm boasts a 620-metric-tonnes-per-day processing plant that generates hundreds of direct jobs, which the company plans to double in the next expansion phase.

By focusing on local production, GBFoods and Tomato Jos, another leading company in the sector, are playing a key role in the reduction of our dependence on imported tomato paste.

But much more importantly is how they are empowering smallholder farmers and creating employment opportunities for local people in the communities where they operate.

On average, the number of casual workers engaged on the farm daily is put at about 1,200.

Although one could see a heavy-duty tomato harvester machine on the farm, they chose to use the local people so that the community could own the project and in turn protect the farm—a very wise decision that has paid off.

Nigeria is reputed as the second-largest producer of tomatoes in Africa after Egypt and the 13th-largest in the world.

But with only about 2.3 million metric tons of tomatoes annually, our country still depends on the importation of tomato paste, largely due to post-harvest losses and the number of inadequate processing facilities.

Meanwhile, the trip to GBFoods in Kebbi from Abuja took us on a 50-minute flight to the airstrip in Kontagora, Niger State, before a punishing four-hour journey that should ordinarily take no more than one and a half hours if the road were good.

The MD of GBFoods, Vincent Egbe with whom I rode, explained the seasonal nature of tomato planting which also requires a specific climatic belt for it to grow and thrive.

While the yield at their farm in Spain is 100 metric tonnes per hectare, for Nigerian farmers who rely on rudimentary methods, the yield is 5 metric tonnes per hectare.

At their mechanised farm in Kebbi, they have already achieved 78 metric tonnes per hectare.

Tomato cultivation, as Egbe told me, requires a high level of sophistication. “It is an emotional plant that requires the right nutrients while the amount of water and fertilizer must be measured. The first 30 days determine the yield. Most Nigerian farmers plant directly in the absence of nursery (green house),” said Egbe who took me through the processes.

“90 percent of tomato is water, so every seedling requires 180 litres of water minimum, and that is a challenge in our country. Four or five states in the north have the water but only three have other ingredients.”

In its August 2017 report, ‘Tomatonomics – Examining Nigeria’s La Tomatina Prospects’, Augusto&Co, a research and credit rating agency, wrote that despite “the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) ranking tomatoes as the vegetable with the highest priority in Nigeria, the annual import bill on tomato is close to $100 million, as over 750,000 tonnes is lost yearly to wastages.”

The situation has since improved with some policy initiatives by the federal government.

For instance, the National Tomato Policy (2022 – 2026) was designed to cut down on post-harvest losses and curb the import of tomato concentrates by increasing imports tariff from 5 percent to 50 percent and an additional $1500 levy per metric Tonnes. But there are challenges.

At a round table last October to enhance tomato productivity and reduce post-harvest losses, the National Tomato Grower’s Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria, (NATPAN) president, Abdullahi Ringim, said the non-enforcement of ‘tomato levy’ has created a funding gap in the sector.

He noted that some of the major inflationary costs of fresh tomatoes include the impact of pests and increased cost of transportation, among others.

When you add insecurity in farming communities, high tariffs on machinery and spares, regulatory bottlenecks etc., one can understand the challenges faced by investors in the sector.

Despite these challenges, Enoh commended the efforts of GBFoods given what he saw and experienced.

But the trip was quite revealing in other respects. On the tarmac in Abuja, as we were boarding, I noticed the man in the cockpit who was clad in kaftan. “Is that not Bala?” I asked to which I got an instant response from Tokunbo, “Yes, that is Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah.”

Until 2023, Na’Allah represented Kebbi South Senatorial seat and was the Deputy Majority leader in the 8th Senate.

Incidentally, GB Foods is in his constituency. “Bala, is this your hustle now?” I asked the moment I entered the aircraft and in typical Nigerian fashion, Na’Allah replied with a question, “Is it not a legitimate hustle?”

Na’Allah’s story in the aviation sector started about two decades ago when his second son, now a captain, was then studying at Cape flying school, South Africa.

The young man challenged the family at a breakfast table to go and learn how to fly if they considered it an easy vocation.

As Na’Allah once told me, they took up the challenge and he secured admission at the Nigerian College of Aviation, Zaria while his late eldest son, Abdulkareem, went to Phoenix Aviation in Florida.

His last daughter, Aisha, who was by his side in the cockpit on our trip two weeks ago, studied at the Aviation College, Ilorin and later in Florida.

That was how they built a family of pilots. So smooth was our flight and flawless the landing that when we arrived back in Abuja, there was a spontaneous applause for the Na’Allahs from all of us.

The message Bala Ibn Na’Allah, who is also a lawyer, sends to many of his colleagues is that politics should be a vocation. Not something on which to build their lives.

But back to GBFoods. I believe that the federal government should assist such enterprises with special agricultural subsidies to reduce the cost of fertilizers, pesticides and other farm inputs.

Addressing the challenge of regulatory bottlenecks that impede most businesses in Nigeria is equally important.

We should also encourage other stakeholders to enter the sector.

Interestingly, the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA), Cornelius Oluwasegun Adebayo, has been sharing with me his vision of farm clusters across the country and with what I saw at the GBFoods in Kebbi, I believe we can use agriculture to address the challenge of poverty, food insecurity and youth unemployment in Nigeria.

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