The Managing Director, Dangote Tomato Processing plant in Kadawa, Kano State, Abdulkarim Kaita, has called on the Federal government to put a total ban on the importation of tomato paste into the country.
He made the call while flagging off the distribution of tomato seedlings to 5,000 farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Thursday at Kadawa village in Kura Local Government Area.
He said “We are appealing to the Federal Government to put a total ban on the importation of tomato like what it did to rice. It is only by putting a total ban on tomato importation that the government can encourage farmers to grow the commodity for the country to be self-sufficient. There are 12 major tomato producing states in the country which if fully cultivated, in the next one year Nigeria will be able to start exporting tomato.”