Ebola cripples tomato production
…Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa, Gombe badly hit WOES of tomato farmers in the country were compounded in early period of the dry season as ‘Tomato Ebola’ struck their farms again after seven years of respite. In 2016, the outbreak of ‘Tomato Ebola’, scientifically called Tuta Absoluta, heavily descended on tomato farms in the country, causing farmers to run into heavy losses. Tuta Absoluta is a family species that is highly destructive to tomato farms, and comes in thousands as they usually devastate farms during the dry season, and no amount of insecticide sprayed can deplete their population. They attack the plant from under the leaves where they perch to do the damage to tomato and, therefore, make it unhealthy for human consumption. Billions lost Farmers of the commodity in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa and Gombe States have been hit below the belt as they lament the loss of investments running into billions of Naira. Farmers, numbering over 500 in Kano alone have lost over N1...