Housewives grab tins as tomatoes get scarce, expensive

“You know, it’s tin tomatoes now, ko,” [sic] a lady said to her two friends as they walked pass a shelf with tinned tomato paste on display in a departmental store. “Ah, yes o, that’s what everybody is using now,” replied one of the ladies, who also said: “Not even these ones in cans because […]

“You know, it’s tin tomatoes now, ko,” [sic] a lady said to her two friends as they walked pass a shelf with tinned tomato paste on display in a departmental store.
“Ah, yes o, that’s what everybody is using now,” replied one of the ladies, who also said: “Not even these ones in cans because of the lack electricity but the sachet ones which you can easily measure for the portion of food you want to cook. There is no question of worrying about left over because you only open up what you need – unlike the ones in cans.”
The price of tomatoes in the country has skyrocketed overnight and has become literarily unaffordable for a lot of households.
The reason for the recent hike is mainly attributed to the infestation of tomato farms by pests and also the exorbitant rates traders have to pay for transporting the produce. The transportation cost, traders said have been a factor for about a month. Now, it is further worsened with the deregulation of petroleum products. From across Nigeria, the price of tomatoes has been excruciating to bear.
At the Utako Market Abuja, a small basket, the size of those commonly used as side bins in offices, now sells for N5, 000 as against about N2, 000 for which it sold as early as March. A small bowl which usually holds about 25 to 30 tomatoes now sells for N800 as against N200 or N300 which it cost this March, too.
During the week when Daily Trust visited the Utako Market, several tomatoes sellers were seen haggling with angry customers as they insisted that they also had to make a decent profit to meet their needs. The traders admitted that the cost and even the lack of quality of the tomatoes are infuriating but this is a situation that they were also suffering from.
For tomatoes traders like Iliyasu Auta who sells at Gwarimpa market Abuja along the First Avenue, they don’t buy as much as they used to because most of it goes to waste. “For the past two weeks I have only bought about a quarter of what I used to purchase before because people don’t buy or they buy very little.”
Auta also said: “When the tomatoes come, we have to select the good ones because insects have eaten up a good number of them. By the time we are done, a good chunk of our stock is gone. The ones that are left are what we sell as ‘broken’ tomatoes which some people still buy.”
But as the saying goes: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Nigerians, never lacking in ideas have found various creative ways to substitute the use of fresh tomatoes with other means.
One of the ladies at the departmental store said: “Now I buy my tin tomatoes, onions, fresh pepper and tatatse. By the time I blend them all together with the little tomatoes I have bought, I have my pot of stew.”
“Must you eat stew?” queried Mrs. Elizabeth Ezeh, who spoke to Daily Trust in Utako Market.
She said: “This is the time for us to look at our traditional foods and substitutes. It is also an opportunity for us to increase our knowledge of recipes. As an Igbo woman, I can’t really say that stew is part of our local delicacy. In the East, we eat boiled rice with palm nut soup which many people call banga. So that is what I have started cooking in my house. Once in a while I make it with some tomatoes, other times I don’t. I use my clay pot to thicken it and my family enjoys it.”
Also, Aghogho Efeturi who spoke to Daily Trust in Utako Market said: “I have traced my steps back to my roots. I come from Delta State but my mum is from Edo State. And amongst the Edo people we don’t eat yam and stew or plantain and stew. We have garden egg and sauces made from palm oil which is called owo.”
Efeturi said: “The Delta people make owo slightly different from the way the Edos make theirs. So when I want to eat boiled yam or plantain I use this. When I want to eat boiled rice, I make sauce with garden eggs or aubergines (eggplant). I also eat my yam and plantain with this sauce.”
Although many have opted to use dried tomatoes as some use the paste, several others insist that the result is still not the same.
Aisha Ali said: “Nothing substitutes fresh tomatoes when making stew. For Jollof rice, you could get it right with only tomato paste. But cooking stew with dried tomatoes makes it black and also tomato paste gives it a kind of sour-bitter taste even when you add chili and tatatse, the mother of six explained.
To ensure she strikes a balance, Mrs Ali said: “I buy the ‘broken’ tomatoes. And to get them, I go all the way to the Deidei market because that is where I am sure to get a reasonable deal.
Beyond this, is the concern that even a substitute like the tinned tomato might soon become unavailable or more expensive with a company like the Kano State-based Dangote Tomato Processing Factory which has suspended production even though it only started operating in February.
According to a statement published by the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN), the Managing Director, Abdulkadir Kaita said the company had stopped production due to the lack of fresh tomatoes to process.
Kaita, according to the report, said most of the tomato farms in Kano, Jigawa, Plateau, Katsina and Kaduna states were affected by a pest popularly known as “Tuta Absoluta” which killed all the tomato species there.
“I hope government will help resolve this problem and teach farmers methods of pest control so that the situation will not become a total disaster,” said Ali.