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The Washington Post

Over the past few days, a number of Nigerian social media accounts have been posting photographs of La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain. For the uninitiated, La Tomatina is a festival that takes place in August and involves 20,000 participants from all over the world engaging in an enormous tomato fight. Some estimates say that more than 100 tonnes of tomatoes are thrown during the event.
La Tomatina is supposed to be fun. But to Nigerians, it looks more like an enormous waste of tomatoes.
“Imagine how much tomatoes over 20,000 people are going to be tomato fighting with meanwhile in Nigeria . . . ,” noted one tweet.
Another: “Tomato Throwing Festival In Spain! Tomato is Priceless and Scarce In Nigeria!”
“Nigerians Watching Spain Celebrating Tomato Festival,When four pieces of Tomatoes is N200 in Nigeria,” another tweeted.
This message online may be tongue-in-cheek, but the problem is a real one. In the past few months, the price of tomatoes has surged dramatically in Nigeria: from US$1.20 a box to more than US$40, according to the BBC. One state in northern Nigeria, Kaduna, has been forced to declare a state of emergency in the tomato sector.
Government officials say the culprit is Tuta absoluta, otherwise known as the tomato leafminer - a type of moth that can ravage tomato crops. At a news conference on Monday, Agriculture Commissioner Maigari Daniel Manzo said the pest had affected 80 per cent of tomato crops in Kaduna.
The shortage is a considerable problem in Nigeria. Tomatoes are an important part of the country’s cuisine, often forming the base of a stew or being included in other dishes, such as the famous Jollof rice. There have been long-standing concerns that the country cannot meet its own demand. While Nigeria’s tomato industry, largely based in the north, is among the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa, the country imports huge amounts of tomatoes and tomato paste, often from China. Domestic growers, hampered by poor storage facilities, find about half of their produce going to waste.
The government has been seeking inventive plans to get around the shortage. In January, Africa’s richest man announced a plan to help wean Nigeria off its reliance on foreign tomatoes - a plan that was supported by favourable government loans. Aliko Dangote had hoped that the Dangote Tomato Processing Factory could eventually provide more than half of the 900,000 tonnes demanded by Nigerian consumers.
There had initially been some suspicion that the Dangote plant itself was responsible for the shortage of tomatoes. However, the company announced this month that it would have to suspend production because it could not get enough tomatoes.


Nigerians see red as ‘tomato emergency’  makes wasteful Spanish festival hard to swallow

Crowds of people throw tomatoes at each other during the annual Tomatina tomato fight in the village of Bunol in Spain last August. Photo: AP

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