Justin Gee says ‘solar-powered cold storage can help ease Nigeria’s food crisis’
The weather forecast for much of Nigeria is dominated by a mix of rainy and dry. The country’s agriculture ministry has estimated that Nigeria’s food deficit has grown from 250,000 tonnes in 2016 to 550,000 tonnes in 2017. The shortfall is a potential humanitarian disaster.
But one of the world’s fastest-growing economies could be going cold. Tomato paste used to be made in central Nigeria by a mafia, but over the past few years some companies have turned to natural refrigeration to keep food fresh.
Justin Gee, who runs the Grocery and Pharmaceutical Wholesalers Association of Nigeria (Gennex), says moving the produce from the field to the market is not always possible. “We would deliver the tomatoes within two days,” he says. “But with the current weather, we would not be able to grow the tomatoes for another month because it’s cold.”
Rising mercury demands an affordable answer. Photograph: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
Gennex looks for cold storage across Nigeria. Once an order has been made, the company ships the products – mostly imported white tomato paste – to another state that has cold storage facilities.
Those facilities are usually refrigerated, which takes some of the burden off Gennex’s growing business. “Most of the things we import are processed, so it’s no work to pack it and send it,” Gee says.
What works in the west is generally not necessarily applicable to the east. So, to keep the icepacks cold Gee sets up a separate air-conditioned room where the cold storage equipment is stored. “When a package lands we change it at the airport and get back on the road,” he says.
One reason modern refrigeration is being used more is that the Nigerian agricultural sector does not use enough of it. Thanks to a breakdown in governance, says Gee, farmers do not have control over every aspect of the process. “A lot of people do not get paid,” he says. Many farmers are working on just a part of a plot, say 30 or 40 hectares. “You don’t grow tomatoes and watermelon all year round and the harvest comes at the end of the dry season.”
As with Africa as a whole, a lack of roads and infrastructure prevents food being transported from the many remote areas into the capital, Abuja. But ranchers can buy a 1,000-litre cold storage unit from Gennex to store their livestock at a distance, Gee says.
The challenge for the future is predicting how long periods of droughts and poor rainfall will last. An estimated 1.3 billion people face food insecurity every year, according to the World Food Programme. Nigeria is one of the countries that needs effective international cooperation to prevent “the worst of the worst”, says Gee.
“If you do your homework you can find a solution to almost any problem. We’re in the business of solving problems,” he says. “We’re focused on building capacity on Nigeria’s cold chain, so that the chickens can come home at the end of the day.”