Plateau trains farmers on vegetable production
Vegetable farmers in Plateau State have decided to go into double season cropping to address increasing demand of vegetables in the state with the commencement of production of improved variety of vegetables through wet season farming following the training of some farmers by the Agricultural Service Training Centre (ASTC) in the state.
Nigeria is a major importer of vegetables. Because tomato and other vegetables produced in the country are of low quality a lot of it gets wasted during peak period of harvest.
The ASTC, through its greenhouse project in the state has trained some farmers on the use of improved tomato and other vegetable varieties for production through the wet season using the greenhouse style. The trainees have also been assured of assistance in the area of soft loans from the Plateau State government to boost their production capacity.
Vegetables in Plateau State have over the years been mainly produced during the dry season by irrigation farmers usually around low lying areas that are near stream channels. Most of these vegetables however become scarce and expensive during the rainy season.
The local farmers however may now face stiff competition with the emergence and fast acceptability of greenhouse farming system, a more advanced system of farming under roofs covered with plastics in a fenced land to protect the plants from insects and to control the weather.
Farmers who have opted for this farming system claim it provides the best option for boosting the quality of agricultural yields. The major advantage of greenhouse farming system is that it is capable of addressing scarcity of vegetables especially tomatoes during the rainy season since crops in the greenhouse are planted all year round, in a well controlled climatic condition.
Mr. Oren Shaked, the General Manager of ASTC said one can grow anything in a greenhouse and at any time of the year, noting that if tomato is grown in the greenhouse during the rainy season it can sell at a very high price because it is scarce in the market.
If you take citrus, Nigeria is the second in the world in citrus production after China; we don’t have orange juice in Nigeria. We drink import concentrated juice
He said one can also reduce to a minimum the use of chemicals in the greenhouse because the plants are protected from insects thereby requiring very little insecticide or fungicide, adding that a lot of consumers today look for organic crops that are grown without the use of fertilizer and chemicals.
Shaked said because the climate under the greenhouse is being controlled, crops grown in the house are better than those grown in the open field, adding, “during the harmattan or dry season, the nights are very cold but in the greenhouses it is hot, the temperature is being controlled so you can get better crops,” he said.
Even though greenhouses provide better and improved ways of crop production especially to local irrigation farmers whose vegetables are exposed to harsh climatic conditions as well as pests and diseases, some of the farmers nevertheless see this advanced system of farming as mere fancy which is incapable of upstaging the conventional farming system.
Suleiman Ibrahim an irrigation farmer in Jos explained that “I don’t see the difference between that system of farming and our own local system because whatever is produced in that white house is also produced by us in our farms.”
Alhaji Ibrahim Lawal, the leader of irrigation farmers in Naraguta however said: “We are more used to our own system of farming in the open fields, the greenhouse is also good, we usually visit the ASTC farms at Lamingo to learn some of those things but we are not doing it, we are more comfortable with our own system.
“We also harvest all those strawberries, cherry tomatoes that the White people harvest in their greenhouse but we don’t cover the place because you will be putting a farmer in difficulty if you ask him to go into that system because he won’t be able to afford it,” he said.
Speaking in an earlier interview with Daily Trust, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina had said: “Another area where we need large commercial farmers is the horticulture produce. You take tomatoes for instance; Nigeria produces 65 percent of all the tomatoes in West Africa, most of it in Kano, with over 45 percent of it rotting away for lack of preservation and processing facilities.
“If you take citrus, Nigeria is the second in the world in citrus production after China; we don’t have orange juice in Nigeria. We drink import concentrated juice. If you take mangoes; you see how big our mangoes are. Nigeria produces about 850,000 metric tons of mangos. South Africa produces about 50,000 metric tons of mangos, but they send us mango juice.
“If you leave that and take the total amount that we produce of pineapples, we produce 997,000 metric tons of pineapples; South Africa produces about 100,000 metric tons of pineapples, but they send us pineapple juice. For all the tomatoes we produce, 1.5 million metric tons, we import tomatoes from China. But we’re changing that very rapidly.
“Already right now we’re working with Dansa, the Dangote Group; they’re putting in $35 million into a tomato processing plant in Kano that will process about 2.5 million metric tons of tomatoes. They’re also putting in $45 million for pineapples in Cross River to actually do the processing of pineapples. The Transcorp Group has put in $6.5 million into fruit juice plant in Makurdi where they’re now processing pineapples and oranges.
“So, you can see that larger players are joining this particular phase, and we need them. We need the small, the young commercial farmers and the large commercial farmers,” the minister said.