World
Already struggling to survive a devastating financial downturn sparked by a precipitous drop in oil revenue, Nigerians now find themselves dealing with another unprepared-for calamity -- one that has driven the price of tomatoes out of hand and certainly out of reach of the average family.
Not long ago, one could buy a whole basket of Nigerian tomatoes for only $1.20. But that, officials say, is before a moth ominously known as the Tomato Leaf Miner carved a swath through 80 percent of Kaduna state’s tomato farms, leaving farmers wading in debt and their customers shell-shocked by the new price -- an unfathomable $40 a basket.
As might be expected, nobody’s biting. Even billionaire Aliko Dangote, recognized as Africa’s richest man, has bowed to market forces and suspended production at his state-of-the-art processing plant, launched this year in neighboring Kano state at the cost of $20 million and designed to churn out 1,200 metric tons of tomato paste a day.
The infestation in Kaduna, in the center of the country’s northern half, has not gone unnoticed 389 miles away in Lagos. President Muhammadu Buhari has declared a state of emergency over what’s being called, in questionable taste, “tomato ebola,” and agricultural officials have been dispatched to Kenya to meet with experts on the Tomato Leaf Miner, whose resistance to pesticides renders it exceedingly difficult to contain.
All of which leaves Nigerian consumers flailing to replace their beloved tomato-based national dishes with tomato-less alternatives, even as they cast a disapproving eye toward places where tomatoes are not only plentiful but are also used for non-culinary purposes. Of course, in this era of worldwide instant communication, that means taking their plight to social media.
Indeed, it is there that many an outraged Nigerian can be found nowadays ripping, for example, La Tomatina, the lighthearted annual food fight in Buñol, Spain, where revelers take inexplicable joy in pelting each other with tomatoes -- all while a country a mere 4-hour, 40-minute flight away can almost be heard collectively moaning, “What a waste!”
