A Professor of Horticulture, College of Plant Science and Crop Production (COLPLANT), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Professor ‘Goke Bodunde, has expressed concern over the high rate of post-harvest losses of harvested tomato fruits in the face of its current scarcity, as well as the low production rate of the crop.
According to him, tomato is classified among fruits that are vulnerable to spoilage within a very short time, as farmer could lose more than 50 per cent of harvest. Against this background, Bodunde disclosed that he had concentrated much of his research efforts on the post-harvest handling of tomato since he joined the services of the University in 1999, and he is very knowledgeable about the crop.
The University Don noted that the country was doing very poorly in the production and processing of tomatoes and that the average yield of tomato worldwide is about 25 tonnes per hectare but, “in Nigeria, our average yield is between 12 and 13 tonnes, which is almost below half of the world average”, adding that it was partly responsible for what prompted him to embark on research that would result into increased yield of the crop and improved post-harvest handling of the fruit.
“After looking at the Agronomy practices in tomato, we felt it should not just stop there. So, we decided to look at what happens after the production, which is called post-harvest handling, with reference to increasing the shelf life of the harvested fruits. We are currently looking at the means of remediation of ethylene gas effect on stored tomato fruit, trying to minimise the effect in order to increase the shelf-life.
“Ours is not a country where we have modern storage technology, particularly, at large scale level and as such, we want to see what is attainable and can be done in our circumstance. In a situation where even if you have your cold storage device, you cannot do cold storage on account of inadequate power supply. So, we looked at those things that can be done outside cold storage. We looked at the use of certain chemical substances that do not necessarily have to be in contact with the fruit so that the fear of eating chemical by the consumer is allayed. What is done is that the chemical substance are used in the medium of storage and by this, I mean within a space in the environment of where the fruits are stored”, he added.