One thing that will be hard to change is the way tomato traders approach their business in Nigeria.
They believe that there is no need to store tomatoes in any cold storage facility, knowing that people must buy their products no matter the state.
At Good Morning Market Aba, Abia State, it was a similar situation with other markets, where the tomatoes in raffia baskets are kept on the ground till they are sold.
One of the trader who spoke to us at the market , said, “There is no need to carry them out of this place, we must sell them even if it stays here for more than two days and that never happens”
She further said that knowing that they can sell off the tomatoes irrespective of their conditions gives them confidence in the business and no one has ever thought of spending extra money to store in a cold room.
“We just buy to sell off” a male trader said to us, while we were researching prior to our Post-Harvest Management Educational Training Program at the market. He said there is no need to buy more than they can sell off within a day or two."It’s a sharp-sharp business, so we just buy to sell off and nothing more than that”, he said.
During the Post-Harvest Management Educational Training Program, we realized that the most important thing in tomato business is the raffia basket and not always the content. The traders believe that their customers see a full basket as ‘a basket of tomato’ and will always be willing to make full payment irrespective of the condition of the produce.
Transportation and storage of tomatoes in crates is still evolving in Nigeria, one thing that will also need cooling trucks to replace the conventional ones we have. Tomatoes can only go straight to storage in cold rooms if they arrive in crates because traders will always insist that once tomatoes leave the raffia basket for another container, it can no longer be referred to as ‘a basket of tomato’.
When this is possible, traders can buy more, store and sell later. This has proven to be more profitable in many businesses and the fact that two-day old tomatoes will not be sold at the same price with fresh ones, makes it clearer that cold storage for tomatoes should be a worthy culture for traders especially.
This is one thing our Post-Harvest Management Educational Training Program is achieving as we go on telling farmers and traders the best ways to handle their produce as well as how cold storage can help them increase their income to up to 40%.
This is a national challenge as Nigeria pushes for food security and minimization of post-harvest losses in the fruits and vegetable sector, something that has been estimated to be about 40%.
Traders care about their money because there is no insurance in the business, so it now falls on relevant government agencies and stakeholders in the sector to swiftly act with good policies that will better the supply chain of tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables consumed regularly across the country.
