Kano State branch of National Tomato Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria plans to establish aggregation centres in each of the 44 Local Government Areas of the state to serve as collection and selling points for the product.
The State Chairman of the association, Alhaji Sani Danladi-Yadakwari, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Wednesday.
He said when established, the centres would give farmers the opportunity to bring their products to the centres from their farms for easy collection by Dangote Tomato Processing company.
“Based on the agreement with the Dangote farms under the Anchor Borrower programme, after harvest the company will buy the fresh tomato from farmers.
“So instead of the farmers to transport the tomato to the company, it will be easy for the company to come and collect the tomato from designated aggregation centres across the state,” he said.
According to him, the centres when established, will reduce the hardship farmers experience in transporting the product to Kadawa area where the company is located.
He called on the company to support the initiative by coming to the aggregation centres to buy the product and collect same from the farmers at the centres.
“We are also calling on the Kano state government through the APPEALS project to come to the aid of the farmers toward that direction,” he said.
On the distribution of tomato seedlings by Dangote farms under the Anchor Borrower programme, he said only 1,200 out of 10,000 registered farmers were able to receive the seedlings.
He, however, expressed happiness that a private company, Greenview had agreed to distribute tomato seedlings that would cover over 3, 639 hectares.
