The price of tomatoes in Nakuru County has drastically dropped by 70 percent reflecting the unpredictable nature of agribusiness, where prices of produce ebb and flow at will to the detriment of farmers.
A tomato farmer in Ngata location, Rose Kwamboka said last month tomatoes were selling as high as Sh8000 a crate but added that now due to an increase in harvest they have dropped sharply to Sh2500 per crate although the prices of inputs remain unchanged.
She said when the prices of tomatoes shot up at the begging of the year due to shortage and some had to be imported from Ethiopia, many farmers rushed to plant hoping to make a killing from the ‘new red gold’, but added they are now coming to terms with disappointment.
Kwamboka added that the prices were likely to keep on sliding downwards since the majority of the hotels remain closed, despite the directive to open, because of low customers, due to the stay at home order.
She was speaking to KNA today on her farm.
A crop officer in the county, Fredrick Owino, said the current agony of tomato farmers brings out the default approaches and initiatives aimed at reforming the agriculture sector.
Speaking to KNA at his office in Nakuru town,Owino said the problem of food security in the country was not one of production, but a problem of distribution and economic access.
He added that there was an urgent need for the country to address the post-harvest losses.
The losses still stand at 40 per cent of the food produced by farmers, which ends up being wasted, since there are no coolers for farmers to store the food, and have no control over the pricing of their products.
By Veronica Bosibori
Tomato prices come down in Nakuru
