By Sola Fanawopo
Efforts are being made by the Tomato Jos, to expand its production capacity. The company was a dream come true that began in 2008, when Mira Mehta encountered her first tomato market glut in Northern Nigeria.
Farmers had lined the roads with tomatoes in an effort to dry and preserve them, because prices were at an all-time low, but the more Mira learned, the stranger the story got. Nigerian farmers produced 65% of the tomatoes grown in West Africa, but paradoxically, it was also the largest importer of tomato paste in the world.
Six years later, Mira finally decided to stop dreaming and start acting. She teamed up with co-founder Shane Kiernan to launch Tomato Jos: a for-profit social enterprise whose mission is to make farming profitable and sustainable for smallholder farmers.
Today, Tomato Jos has over 20 employees, and we believe in the dream more than ever. Our model hasn’t changed – we still help smallholder farmers to grow excellent tomatoes, and this spring we will use those tomatoes to make high-quality tomato paste.
