Prices of foodstuff such as tomatoes, pepper and onions have reduced by about 45 per cent in Lagos, ahead of Christmas and New Year celebrations, according to various checks.
Price checks at Mile 12, Whitesand, Iddo and Oko Oba markets in Lagos on Monday, showed that the drop in prices could be attributed to bumper harvest of agricultural produce.
A basket of tomatoes, which previously sold for N15,000 now goes for N8,000 while red pepper (tatashe) now sells at N8000 compared to its previous price of N14,000 per basket.
A basket of chilli pepper (rodo) also reduced from N18,000 to N10,000 and a jute bag of onions, which previously cost N30,000, now goes for N20,000.
25-litre of vegetable oil, which previously sold for N11,500, now sells at N10,700, palm oil decreased from N11,000 to N10,300, while a measure of garri now cost N400.
However, the price of a 50-kilogramme bag of rice ranged between N13,500 to N17,000, depending on the brand while a measure of beans cost N1,500.
The spokesman for Mile 12 Market Traders Association, Mr Femi Odusanya, said that over 20 per cent of the annual four million metric tonnes of tomatoes produced in the country is supplied to Mile 12 Market annually and redistributed to over 400 markets in Lagos and Ogun State and six ECOWAS countries.
“About 200, 000 metric tonnes of the 800,000 metric tonnes of tomatoes annually supplied to Mile 12 Market get wasted due to post-harvest losses.
According to Odusanya, the supply of the produce is more than the demand because farmers commenced harvest in December and there would be surplus in the market until April when the harvest season would end.”
Finally, he urged the three tiers of government to create an enabling environment toward attracting more investors to tomato processing in the country.
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