Y1 Progress report: Ololade Latifat Abdulrahman
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Climate Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity of Tomato Value Chain Actors: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria
The Tomato Value Chain (TVC) is a crucial component of Africa's food system, contributing significantly to the continent’s economy. It is a complex system involving multiple actors who are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, thereby affecting their livelihoods.
In Nigeria, the tomato value chain is significantly affected by climate change, which disrupts production cycles, reduces yields, increases post-harvest loss, and causes food insecurity. As agriculture is foundational to sustainable development, addressing these vulnerabilities is essential for ensuring food security and economic stability in the region.
The low quality and yield of produce, as well as the substantial post-harvest losses caused by climate change, generate low profits for smallholder tomato farmers, which also has a great influence on the remaining actors. Another challenge in the tomato value chain is poor storage systems, amongst others. This underscores the need to develop the adaptive capacity of tomato value chain actors to enhance their resilience to climate change. This study thus empirically examined the following objectives:
To assess the level of vulnerability of different tomato value chain actors to climate change impacts.
To examine the adaptive capacity of tomato value chain actors in terms of access to resources, technology, institutions, and knowledge.
To examine the constraints and barriers hindering effective adaptation along the tomato value chain.
To evaluate the impact of training on the tomato value chain actors.
This study was conducted in Kaduna and Kano States, located in the North-West geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The states share similar agroecological characteristics, including a tropical continental climate with distinct wet and dry seasons. Agriculture serves as the primary occupation of the rural population in both states. The study's target population comprises all tomato value chain actors in the two identified States. These States were purposively selected due to the preponderances of tomato production targeting smallholder farmers.
A mixed-methods research design involving the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods was employed in this study. Specifically, an interview schedule was used to collect quantitative data, while qualitative data were elicited through focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs). A total of 636 respondents were interviewed along the tomato value chain in the study areas. I mapped out the existing value chain actors and involved the following stakeholders:
State Ministry of Agriculture: Provided technical guidance on project execution. Participated in policy dialogue towards a state-level tomato value chain system and disseminated the project outcome to other states.
Federal Department of Agricultural Extension: Participated in policy dialogue at the federal level of the tomato value chain system.
Community Leader: Provided overall community leadership and guidance.
Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI): Provided technical support in the field in relation to post-harvest handling and storage facilities.
Research on Impact, Knowledge, Economy, and Sustainable Development (RIKESD) is a Non-Governmental organisation that provides support and connects researchers to ensure a smooth community engagement for impactful research.
Value chain actors’ Association (input suppliers, farmers cluster, marketers, processors, transporters): Served as institutional partners to mobilise members for the study, potential beneficiaries for the project and institutions for policy implementation.
The baseline research involved a stakeholder engagement, community entry and data collection. This was achieved between October 2025 and January 2026. One of the most memorable parts of this research is the journey itself. Travelling for about 13 hours to reach the community gave me enough time to understand that field research begins long before the first contact with the community itself, and far from the first questionnaire is administered. By the time we arrived, I was tired, dusty, and hungry, but the warmth of the community quickly changed my mood.
The most extraordinary experience was seeing how farmers, marketers, and rural assemblers understood climate risks through daily experience rather than scientific language. Their stories about heat, changes in rainfall, prolonged dry spells, pest infestation, poor storage, transport difficulties, and post-harvest losses made the research feel very real. The journey was tiring, but it reminded me that meaningful research is not only about collecting data; it is also about listening, learning, laughing, and respecting the lived experiences of the people behind the numbers.
After this, the analysis was done between January 2026 and March 2026. Manuscript development was also ongoing. Outputs from the first phase include baseline results, a training manual and three manuscripts.
The second phase of my project started in April 2026: the intervention, a capacity-building workshop for all tomato actors. The planning and preparation for the training were completed, and the training was conducted on the 30th of June 2026.
The baseline assessment for the project has provided critical insights into the climate-related challenges affecting actors across the tomato value chain and their current capacity to respond. Findings revealed varying levels of exposure and sensitivity to climate risks. The assessment also identified significant gaps in knowledge, access to climate information, adaptive technologies, financial resources, and institutional support that constrain the resilience of value chain actors. These baseline findings have established a clear evidence base for the next phase of the research fellowship programme and have informed the design of targeted capacity-building interventions. The training will focus on climate-smart agricultural practices, risk management strategies, efficient water use, improved post-harvest handling, access to climate information services, and other context-specific adaptation measures.
Over the last 12 months, my understanding of transdisciplinary research has shifted from seeing it mainly as collaboration among academic disciplines to a deeper process of co-producing knowledge with both academic and non-academic actors. Initially, I viewed transdisciplinary research as bringing together experts from fields such as climatology, agricultural economics, agricultural extension, agronomy, plant breeding and genetics, soil science, agricultural engineering, and agribusiness. However, through developing this proposal, I now understand that transdisciplinarity goes beyond expert consultation. It requires the active involvement of farmers, input dealers, rural assemblers, wholesalers, retailers, processors, consumers, government institutions, NGOs, community-based organisations, and agricultural development programmes.
This shift became clearer because the tomato value chain is not only a production issue, but also a climate, livelihood, market, policy, post-harvest, and social resilience issue.
The proposal helped me appreciate that climate change vulnerability cannot be fully understood through scientific indicators alone. It must also be understood through the lived experiences of tomato value chain actors who face rainfall variability, pests, poor storage, market limitations, post-harvest losses, and changing production risks.
My understanding has therefore moved from researching communities to researching with communities. I now see transdisciplinary research as a practical, participatory, and problem-solving approach where knowledge from researchers, institutions, and local actors is combined to design relevant solutions. In this study, that means using baseline assessments, consultations, mixed methods, training, field demonstrations, and impact assessment to ensure that the research not only generates academic knowledge but also strengthens adaptive capacity and supports real change among tomato value chain actors in Nigeria.
Annual report submitted by Dr Ololade Latifat Abdulrahman
(summarised for publication by Heidi Sonnekus for the FAR-LeaF Programme)
