The 2017 tomato policy: assessing the impact of tomato paste production on Nigeria’s freshwater
- December 23, 2020
- Posted by: RSIS Team
- Categories: Agriculture, IJRIAS
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS) | Volume V, Issue XII, December 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186
The 2017 tomato policy: assessing the impact of tomato paste production on Nigeria’s freshwater
O. Adeoti, FF. Akinola, SA. Ogundare, and BS. Awe*
Department of Agricultural and Bio-Environmental Engineering
The Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
Abstract:- The overall goal of the 2017 Nigeria tomato policy is to boost the local production of fresh tomatoes, stop importation, and enhance the domestic production of tomato paste. However, from the water perspective, the impact of tomato paste (double concentrate) production on Nigeria’s freshwater resources remains unclear. Using the water footprint-resource sustainability calculation method, results showed that the pressure exerted by tomato paste production amounted to 1518in the Lower Niger (LN) drainage basin and 1734 m3/t in the Lake Chad (LC) drainage basin. Converting 60 per cent of the fresh tomatoes to tomato pastewill consume about 8per cent of the freshwater of the LN drainage basin per annum or 59per cent of that of LC. This is after accounting for the presumed minimum environmental flow requirement. Withover 20 per cent usage, tomato paste production in the LC drainage basin in Nigeria is capable of contributing to freshwater scarcity. To reduce the impact of tomato paste production on Nigeria’s freshwater, improvementson tomato yield are suggested.
Keywords: Fresh tomato; Water use; Tomato paste; Water footprinting; Water stress; Freshwater scarcity; Nigeria
1. Introduction
Worldwide, tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., is the second most widely consumed vegetable after potato. To produce a fruit, the tomato plant requires between 90 and 150 days (Behzadian et al., 2015). Between 80 and 90 per cent of the fruit is water (Food and Agriculture of the United Nations (FAO), 2020a). Global tomato production was 182.26 million tonnes in 2018, with China accounting for the largest, 33.81 per cent (FAO, 2019). Statistics indicates that fresh tomato production is growing in Nigeria (Figure 1). In 2018, Nigeria was the 12th largest producer and the second largest producer in Africa after Egypt. Tomato, which can be consumed fresh, requires a well-drained, light loam soil with pH of 5 to 7(FAO, 2020b). Crop yield in Nigeria varied from 9.8 t/hectare (ha) in 1961, highest at 10.4 t/ha in 1995, to its lowest of 3.7 t/ha in 2013 (FAO, 2019). Production in 2018 was 3.91 million t, highest at 4.23 million t in 2015 (Figure 1). On average, tomato consumption in Nigeria was 12 kg per capita in 2016 (PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria, 2018). For the 193 million people in 2019, tomato demand amounted to 2.32 million tonnes (t) per annum. Notwithstanding this, national demand for fresh tomatoes has been estimated at 2 to 3 million t per annum (Ugonna et al., 2015). Because of production shortages and postharvest losses (estimated at over 45 per cent (PwC Nigeria, 2018)), Nigeria continues to depend on the importation of tomato paste to meet the demand-supply gap.
