Aliko Dangote :Tapping the gold in tomato business.

Aliko Dangote :Tapping the gold in tomato business. Agriculture is the way out of recession and definitely the future of work. The drive to ensure food security is the in road to agribusiness ventures and investment opportunities in agriculture. The wave of investments in agricultural sector is not limited to farmers and youths even billionaires are trying to increase their wealth by venturing into agribusiness. Aliko Dangote — Africa’s richest man —has ventured into the tomato business by opening a $20 million processing facility in Kano state, northern Nigeria. The goal is to compete for a share of lucrative tomato paste market, which currently depends on imports from China. The new tomato processing plant, built by Swiss-based Syngenta, has the capacity to produce up to 400,000 tons of tomato paste every year for the Nigerian market. The plant is working with a network of over 50,000 smallholder tomato farmers in Northern Nigeria,he will buy off their products at a competitive price,better than that obtained in open market.The step towards cutting waste from post harvest losses is a laudable effort but more investors are needed to cut off imports completely but promote exports instead.