By Bisola Adeyemo
The minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, has lamented that Nigeria is not one of the leading tomato exporting countries, due to the challenges of low yield resulting from seed type use.
Speaking at the launch of the HortiNigeria Project in Abuja on Thursday, the minister said that despite being a leading tomatoes producer in Africa, low yield from seed type planting by farmers reduces the quantity and quality of production.
According to him, NAN reported that Nigeria’s various economies soil and climatic conditions are suitable for production of horticultural crops.
The climate conditions, he said, conferred an immense competitive advantage and potential on Nigeria to take a leading role in tomato production and trade.
While explaining that “HortiNigeria’’ is yet another opportunity to promote activities of the horticultural sub-sector, Abubakar said government was looking forward to catalysing increased productivity.
He added that government was also looking forward to exposing 60,000 smallholder farmers in the four focal states to increased production.
He added that the project would facilitate 200 business-to-business linkages and 100 business partnerships.
The project is to be implemented in Kano, Kaduna, Ogun and Oyo states, focusing on tomato, okra, onion, and pepper value chains.