Just before the Christmas festivities, the prices of tomatoes, pepper and onions in Lagos have been cut by about 45 percent. The drop in prices is due to a bumper harvest.
A basket of tomatoes, which previously sold for 15,000 naira (35 euros)
now goes for 8,000 naira (19 euros). Red peppers now go for 8,000 naira, where a basket previously went for 14,000 naira. A basket of chilli pepper dropped from 18,000 to 10,000 naira. A bag of onions, previously 30,000 naira, now goes for 20,000 naira.
Premium Times ng learned that currently the supply of produce is more than the demand as the harvest has just begun. There is expected to be a surplus in the market until April, when the harvest season ends.
Poignant in all this is the amount of post-harvest wastage; about 200,000 out of 800,000 metric tonnes of tomatoes annually gets wasted due to post-harvest losses. The Nigerian government is being pressured to increase investment in tomato processing plants to end this waste, create jobs and increase the contribution to Gross Domestic Product.
[ 100 Nigerian Naira = 0.24 Euro ]
