Unic Press UK: Kaduna State Governor, Nasiru El-Rufai, has declared a state of emergency on tomato farming following the outbreak of a specie of moth, botanically named Tuta Absoluta, which has been destroying tomato farms’ in the state.
At a press conference in Kaduna, the commissioner for agriculture in Kaduna State said:
“I want to say that Governor Nasir El-Rufai has declared a state of emergency on tomatoes in the state. This is as a result of invasion of the crops by a pest named tomato blight, botanically known as Tuta Aboluta.
“In the past one month, 12 local government areas of the state that produce tomatoes have lost 80% of its tomatoes harvest. In three local government areas, about 200 farmers have lost one billion naira worth of their tomatoes. So you can imagine the magnitude of the lose.
“It is so severe that even Dangote who has established a tomato processing plant in Kano, had to shut down production.
“The problem with the disease which is caused by a moth, is that no amount of spraying will kill the adult. You spray it, after about three hours, it revives back to life. So, we have sent some of our officials to travel to Kenya and meet our partners. Kenya has a good advantage on this issue over us.
“We understand that they use a plant extract to take care of this problem. But we do not have that knowledge yet. We expect them to return very soon with a short and medium term solution”
