Dangote Group Kadawa tomato factory in Kano state is set to resume operations.
ICMS, Inc Reports
By Tom Okure, Ph. D
By Tom Okure, Ph. D
February 4, 2017
 |
| Alikote
Dangote is founder and president of Dangote Group |
African Manufacturing and Industrial Giant "Dangote Group" has
announced it is set to resume tomato processing in its Kadawa factory in Kano
State of Nigeria. In preparation to restart the Tomato Processing Factory Alhaji
Abdulkarim Kaita, who is the Company Managing Director, disclosed recently in
an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano that the company has begun
a tomato farms surveys in six states which include Jigawa, Katsina, Kaduna,
Kano, Gombe, Plateau and Sokoto. The surveys are supposed to ascertain the
extent of the availability of tomatoes in the farms of these major producing
states.
The company indicates it will need about 40 trailers of
tomato daily to meet its processing needs in the factory when the farmers start
harvesting their tomatoes. In preparation for the start of production at the
factory, the company engaged more than 50 new employees who will focus on conveying
the fresh tomato inside the factory for processing and about 30 Industrial
Training (IT) students are alleged to have also been employed by the company as
quality control inspectors to assess the quality of the tomatoes prior to processing.
It will be recalled that last year the company was forced to
suspend its production of processed tomatoes because of insufficient raw
materials input and an outbreak of a pest popularly known as “Tuta Absoluta’’ which
destroyed tomato farms in Kano and five other tomato producing states in
Nigeria. The massive requirement of tomatoes needed as raw material input at
the factory also caused shortages of tomatoes throughout the country.
Commentary and Policy Recommendation
The announcement to resume the processing of tomatoes by the
Dangote Group is a welcome development for Nigeria as it adds to the internal
production capacity of this vital commodity that is widely used in food
preparation by Nigerian families. Internal production of tomato paste etc., in Nigeria
will help reduce the importation of this vital commodity by the federal
government and save the country on badly needed foreign exchange at a time of
recession by helping to reduce or end the importation of processed tomato paste
into the country.
More than 40,000 individual farms are involved in the farming
of tomatoes in the six identified states and would benefit from selling their
tomatoes to the Dangote factory. Logistically local employment will be
stimulated in various ways as local people will be involved in supplying things
like baskets, fertilizer and other needs of the farmers. Nevertheless, we believe that rather than buying the raw
materials from the individual farmers as is planned, a better policy approach would
be for the Dangote Company to retain the services of the tomato farmers as its
agents organized into “tomato farm cooperatives” to grow, harvest and sale the
tomatoes back to Dangote Company at an assured and guaranteed annual price.
This
approach would create both employment for the farmers and guarantee them some level
of expected annual income for their tomatoes. The Nigerian Federal Government
in partnership with the Dangote Group would fund the creation of cooperative farms
from among the individual farmers, provide the cooperative farms with the
technical assistance and know how needed to grow and harvest pest free high yield
quality tomatoes on a year round basis for harvesting, sale to and processing
at the company’s Kadawa factory in Kano State.
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