Dangote Farms have started a pilot hybrid tomatoes production in Kano to meet the demand of it’s tomatoes processing plants in the state, its Managing Director, Alhaji Abdulhamid Kaita, disclosed on Friday.
Kaita told newsmen at the end of a two-day stakeholders’ forum on tomatoes value chain in Kano that the company had also introduced the hybrid seedlings to farmers.
He said the farmers, however, insisted that the seedlings be tried by the company’s farm before they could patronise it.
He noted that the company had begun a pilot project at Kadawa area of the state during this year’s rainy season and was about to begin the second phase of the project in the dry farming season.
“The yield produced before is about 10 tones per hectare, while the hybrid seedling varieties introduced will produce 80 to 100 tones per hectare using the best practices,” Kaita said.
He said the meeting was aimed at mobilising the farmers to rub minds to save the company from shortage of raw materials.
He added that the company had engaged farmers in the past two years and provided them with best practices in tomatoes production and processing.
Kaita said the company had orgnised the farmers into groups to enable them benefit from the company.
Contributing, one of the stakeholders, Mr Richard Ogundele, commended Dangote Farms for the initiative.
He expressed optimism that Dangote Farms would reap the benefit of the forum as many problems were brought for discussion.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Dangote Farms collaborated with the World Bank to conduct the meeting on tomatoes.
The meeting, held between Nov. 20 and Nov. 21, had several stakeholders such as Federal and State Ministries of Agriculture, development partners and insurance companies in attendance.
