Tomatoes are a staple food in Nigeria. From farmers in the northern states to traders across the country, many depend on the fruit for a living. But climate change and the tomato moth have hit the industry hard.
Image: DW/S.Olukoya
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Nigeria has a reputation as sub-Saharan Africa's biggest tomato producer. The Dede tomato market in the capital Abuja is usually bustling with customers stocking up on the bright fruit, which plays a starring role in Nigerian cuisine. But these days, prices are high and business slow.
"When tomatoes were in abundance we were taking delivery of more than a hundred trucks daily," says Mamuda Mamoko, an official of the market's traders union. "Now we are taking delivery of a little over 20 to 25 trucks."
Things are much the same across the country.
"There are markets where in the past they used to offload more than ten vehicles but now not even a single tomato fruit is available," Mamoko told DW.
Over recent months, infestations of Tuta absoluta - the tomato moth - whose larvae feed on tomato plants, have plagued the country's tomato farms.
Traders at the Abuja tomato markets complain that prices are high and business slowImage: DW/S.Olukoya
And that has pushed up prices - at one point by as much as 500 percent.
Leaving a bad taste
In a country where tomatoes are used to prepare most dishes, the shortage is keenly felt by shoppers. "It is not easy, the tomato problem is getting out of hand," says Abuja housewife Famakinwa Tosin.
Tosin has tried to adjust her recipes. "When I cannot afford to buy the fresh tomatoes, I bought dried tomato and cooked it with tinned tomatoes."
But she hasn't been pleased with the results. "The taste is not the same as the fresh ones," she complains.
And the shortage is affecting livelihoods. Esther Obey makes a living selling tomatoes at a roadside stall on the outskirts of the capital. She also operates a machine to grind tomatoes for her customers.
Obey says high prices have put many customers off. As the sole breadwinner of a family of seven, she's worried.
As well as selling tomatoes Esther Obey offers a service grinding them. Both businesses have been hit hardImage: DW/S.Olukoya
"The way money used to come in before when there were many tomatoes - the money is no longer coming as it used to. So that affects us," she told DW.
Pesticide resistance
The shortage is affecting farmers too. North-east of Abuja, Kaduna is one of Nigeria's key tomato producing states - and one of those worst hit by the moth infestation.
"You leave your farm in good shape today, but when you return to the farm tomorrow to harvest you may find that all the crops are infested," says tomato farmer Mohammadu Sagir. "The moth eats everything."
And dousing the fields in chemicals doesn't seem to offer a solution.
"The pesticide for the infestation is our concern," Sagir told DW. "You keep applying it, but the moth is resistant. It is resistant to all the pesticides that are being applied."
The moths are bad enough. But they aren't the only problem Nigerian tomato farmers have to contend with. Even before the recent infestations began, tomato yields had been falling due to water shortages.
Tomato yields were already falling due to drought before the tomato moth hitImage: DW/S.Olukoya
Drought and desertification
Tomatoes are thirsty plants. They don't produce those plump juicy fruit without plenty of water. Nigeria's main tomato producing region is the country's semi-arid north and farmers use irrigation to water their fields.
But in recent years the region has experienced increasing drought and desertification.
Emmanuel Oladepo, professor of climatology at the University of Lagos, says global warming is to blame for higher temperatures that mean the irrigated water evaporates away.
"If it's getting hot and you are still just irrigating, you will be losing a lot of your water to evaporation," Oladepo told DW. "And higher evaporation than normal means less water for tomato to use and therefore it may not yield."
Waste water
And the hot, dry conditions may be contributing to the pest problem too. Oladepo says farmers are resorting to contaminated water to irrigate their fields. And that makes the plants prone to pests.
Tomatoes are a key ingredient of Nigerian cuisine and a source of income for manyImage: DW/S.Olukoya
"They use all kinds of water which nobody knows the quality of," he says. Much of it is waste water. "If you keep on using water from drainage - from human waste - to water the tomatoes, you will expect something will happen eventually."
So far, little research has been done into the link between the water shortage and pest infestations. But with livelihoods from farms to urban markets hit by the decline in this key crop, Oladepo says it's high time the issue received proper attention.
Africa calls for climate justice
Scientists warn that the earth's temperature could rise by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Africa is already suffering from climate change. The consequences could be disastrous if action is not taken.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Maina
Africa is running out of water
In the event of a global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the World Bank predicts that southern Africa would experience up to thirty percent less rainfall. The result: an increased risk of drought. During an extremely dry period in the mid-1990s, herdsmen in Ethiopia lost around half their animals.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Maina
Too much rain
In East Africa, there could be more rain in future - not spread equally throughout the year but pouring down on just a few consecutive days. In 2011 torrential rainfall hit the Tanzanian port city of Dar Es Salaam, flooding entire districts. 10,000 people had to be housed in emergency accommodation. At least 23 people died.
Image: cc-by-sa-Muddyb Blast Producer
Smaller harvests, more hunger
In Africa small farmers produce some 90 percent of the continent's harvests. If crop resistance to the increasing droughts, floods and other weather disasters does not improve greatly, up to 20 percent more people will suffer hunger by 2050, the UN estimates.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Joe
Health risks
Malnutrition resulting from poor harvests is already a problem in many countries. Many people move to city slums where diseases like cholera quickly spread. If temperatures rise, other diseases like malaria could also spread more quickly - for example in the East African highlands, a region that is currently malaria-free.
Image: Getty Images/S. Maina
Vanishing species
Higher temperatures influence entire eco-systems. Many plants and animals cannot adapt to the changing conditions quickly enough. A report by the World Climate Council says that between 20 and 30 percent of all species face extinction as a result of climate change.
Image: CC/by-sa-sentouno
No more snow on Kilimanjaro
The covering of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro is almost 12,000 years old. In the last 100 years more than 80 percent of the ice fields have disappeared. A research group in Ohio has calculated that if this continues, the ice will have vanished completely by 2033 at the latest. They say drought and reduced snowfall would be the main reasons.
Image: Jim Williams, NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio, and the Landsat 7 Science Team
When the last tree is felled.....
Much of the responsibility for climate change lies with power plants, factories and automobiles in the US, Europe and Asia. But the felling of many African forests, for example to obtain charcoal, increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and contributes to the destruction of the soil.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/T. Karumba
Replanting the forests
Many people have now realised that they have to act to counter the effects of climate change. For decades, environmentally aware Kenyans have been planting new trees and the area covered by forest is expanding. The trees prevent valuable farmland from being eroded - and they absorb the greenhouse gas CO2.
Image: DW/H. Fischer
Protection through variety
Monocultures are very susceptible to drought or attack by pests. If different types of fruit are grown together, then there is still a harvest if one of them fails. According to the UN Environment Program (UNEP) ecological agriculture increases resistance to the consequences of climate change more effectively than conventional farming.
Image: Imago
Action, not just words
Underground rainwater reservoirs, insurance schemes that act as a buffer when harvests fail - there are many ways to soften the effects of climate change. Development aid and climate protection must go hand in hand, stressed delegates at a recent UN conference. However, no concrete projects were put forward.
Image: picture alliance/Philipp Ziser
Hopes pinned on Paris
"Climate justice now!" demonstrators called at at a UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa, four years ago. They are now looking towards the end of this year when climate change will be discussed in Paris. There, the first global climate agreement could be adopted, with the goal of restricting the effects of climate change and keeping the global warming increase to two degrees Celsius.