Climate-smart tomato farming in Nigeria
Tomatoes are one of the most important vegetable crops cultivated and consumed in Nigeria. It contributes significantly to household nutrition, employment generation, income creation, agro-industrial development, and national food security. Thousands of smallholder farmers across Northern Nigeria depend on tomato cultivation as a major source of livelihood. Despite its importance, the tomato subsector continues to experience enormous production and marketing challenges. Climate change has intensified these challenges through increasing temperatures, irregular rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts, flooding, emerging pests and diseases, and declining soil fertility. These climatic stresses have reduced productivity, increased production costs, and exposed farmers to greater risks and uncertainty.
In addition to production challenges, Nigeria continues to experience significant post-harvest losses in tomatoes due to poor harvesting techniques, inadequate storage facilities, inappropriate packaging materials, poor transportation systems, weak market linkages, and limited processing capacity. Estimates indicate that between 40% and 50% of tomatoes produced annually are lost before reaching consumers, representing enormous economic losses for producers, marketers, processors, and the national economy.
The need for capacity development
Building resilience within the tomato value chain, therefore, requires coordinated interventions that combine improved production practices, climate-smart technologies, efficient post-harvest management, market innovations, value addition, and strong institutional collaboration. Capacity development remains one of the most effective approaches for empowering farmers and other value chain actors with the knowledge and skills required to adapt successfully to climate variability and sustain agricultural productivity.
It was against this background that the Capacity Building Workshop on Climate Adaptation for Tomato Value Chain Actors in North-West Nigeria was hosted on 30 June 20226. The workshop formed part of the broader research activities of Dr Ololade Latifat Abdurrahman under the Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship. The programme sought to bridge existing knowledge gaps by exposing participants to practical climate adaptation strategies, emerging technologies, and innovative approaches to strengthen resilience throughout the tomato value chain.
Developing solutions through stakeholder engagement
The workshop brought together a diverse group of stakeholders involved in different segments of the tomato value chain. Participants included tomato farmers, marketers, processors, extension agents, researchers, university staff, students, government officials, representatives of development organisations, private-sector companies, and agricultural service providers. The programme combined expert presentations, practical discussions, question-and-answer sessions, and experience sharing. This participatory approach enabled participants to contribute their experiences while learning from experts and fellow stakeholders. The workshop also provided an important networking opportunity through which participants established professional relationships that could facilitate future collaboration in research, extension, technology dissemination, agribusiness development, and policy engagement.
Focusing on the technical issues
The technical component of the programme consisted of three expert-led sessions covering climate-smart tomato production, climate-smart marketing and transportation, and climate adaptation in tomato processing and consumption. The sessions focused on
Climate-Smart Tomato Production: Integrating Quality Agricultural Inputs and Resilient Farming Practices for Sustainable Tomato Production
Climate-Smart Tomato Marketing and Transportation: Reducing Post-Harvest Losses and Building Resilient Market Systems
Climate Shock Adaptation in Tomato Processing and Consumption: Building Resilient Food Systems and Reducing Food Losses
Following the technical sessions, participants were presented with incentive packages consisting of improved tomato seed and plastic tomato harvesting crates.
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Read the Policy Brief 
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