Tomato Production: Kano State eager to partner private investors

The Kano State Government has shown interest to work with private investors to increase tomato production in the state. This was made public in an interview with the New Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Friday by the Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Alhaji Nasiru Gawuna. According to Gawuna, the state government is prepared to give out farms to private investors so that the food crop can be produced for local consumption and in large commercial quantity to be sold to the Dangote Tomato Processing Company and other business interests.He emphasized that the idea is to boost production of the commodity and also make raw products available to Tomato Processing Companies. “This is what the government did at Kadawa where it set aside many farms for tomato production as a trial,” Gawuna stated. The Commissioner also said the government is aware of the effect pest infection has on boosting production and that arrangements have been reached on how to support farmers. The “Innovative Platform on Tomato” committee has been set up to realize the desired execution of government’s plans. On irrigation, Gawuna said the plans have been concluded by the government build boreholes at all irrigation locations in all the 44 local government areas of the state to facilitate irrigation. This is necessary to help improve production of some special produce like groundnut, maize and wheat, etc. “The initiative will not only provide job opportunities to the teeming number of unemployed persons but will also check rural-urban drift especially among youths,” he said.